Tumgik
#I was so interested in the new dragon from the beginning
peachssodapop · 1 year
Text
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
Zelda...
I have been utterly inconsolable since I finished the Dragon's Tears questline
232 notes · View notes
fluffypotatey · 1 year
Note
Since I very sincerely doubt Uther managed to kill ALL the Dragonlords (they're knights, not the KGB, and it was a lot easier to disappear back then) imagine them returning to Albion from Rome or whatever to find Cousin Balinor's only son is ruling Camelot and the Druids, is best friends with an immortal knight and one dude that's been raised from the fucking dead, is bonded to THEE oldest dragon they've ever heard of (and who is also nuttier than squirrel stew) and a semi-feral hatchling that barely listens to four (4) people max and hisses/bites/claws at the rest, and oh yeah, is married to a fucking Pendragon.
Tumblr media
Family dinners must be a hoot and a half.
oh to be a fly on the wall when they finally make an audience in Camelot. oh to see Merlin's face morph from apprehension to wonder to exhaustion to horror because they're telling Arthur everything they know.
#obviously these guys arrive post battle of camlann and post magic ban being lifted#they heard about the new king of camelot being the once and future king wanted to see that for themselves (they have so many questions)#they create a dragonlord support group for merlin#honestly my question is when exactly did the dragonlord population start dimishing#sure okay we can say during the Purge and Uther isn't one for mercy so he would totally go on a warpath...but they're dragonlords and yet#they lost to a mad king who only had knights on his side.#theory: dragonlord population was dwindling long before the Purge#other kingdoms in Abion were growing suspicious and wary of dragolords and their ability to “control” dragons#many kings felt threatened by it and sought to exterminate them#paranoia for magic prob been around long before the Purge (twas only the catalyst for a century long tension bt royals and sorcerers)#think WW1 kind of tension between kings and dragonlords: kingdoms were beginning to stabilize/unify; territories were drawn out#oh bro i am now actually very interested in exploring the events leading up to the Purge#my theory: Ambrosious the king said to “unite” Albion that first time had issues with gaining fealty from dragonlords#dragonlords saw themselves as neutral ambassadors but Ambrosious saw them as threats; they reached some treaty but the animosity stayed#every line of succession you have a king seeking to get dragonlords under their rule and dragonlords refusing#then maybe a king or so before Uther less heirs for dragonlords occur; less eggs hatch or are allowed to hatch (kings find them and keep#the prized eggs in their vaults full of treasure blatantly ignoring the very sacred and important dragonlord customs)#but then the Purge comes and now many dragonlords are hunted down and killed and many leave to never return#so yeah maybe Balinor was the last dragonlord on Albion by s2 finale but not because they all died but bc he was the last one who stayed#and lived since everyone else now reside elsewhere in the world refusing to rebuild the bridge the kings had burned#bbc merlin#dragonlords#headcanons#asks
60 notes · View notes
fairyysoup · 4 months
Text
his hands
Tumblr media
pairing(s): hairdresser!eddie munson x fem!reader
summary: How do you make getting a haircut an erotic experience? You have Eddie Munson as your hairdresser, of course.
cw: explicit, smut, unprotected piv sex, mirror sex, workplace sex, hand kink, choking, dumbification, dom!eddie, touch-starved!reader, semi-sort-of subspace happenings, referring to genitals with gendered pronouns, slight body worship, getting weirdly horny over a head massage, sexual tension, negative self talk, hair cut/style mentioned but no description of hair color/type, the aftercare is the haircut lol, implied 90s au, eddie's like 30, reader's age unspecified, eddie is employee of the month in my heart, not proofread, no beta we die like men
a/n: this is weird. and came from an interesting experience i had at the hair salon. and yes that is corpse's hand in that pic i didn't want to spend all day looking for a header pic shut up shut up shut up
ALL MY WORKS ARE 18+ MINORS DNI
Tumblr media
Your hands twitch on the copy of Elle magazine in your lap. The familiar waiting area of your local salon has new furniture, which still smells a bit like the cellophane it came wrapped in, and hasn’t been worn out by patrons just yet. You’d asked for your usual stylist, Melissa. Except, you haven’t been here in so long, and apparently Melissa doesn’t work here anymore. 
“We have a new stylist in her place,” the greeter at the front desk told you kindly. “I could fit you in if you’d like that same station?” 
The station doesn’t matter to you; they all look the same and have the same tools. Obviously, when it comes to getting your hair cut, the stylist makes the difference. But, since you’re a couple months too late to catch up with Melissa, a new stylist is who you’ll be working with. 
The PA still plays some sort of weird pop-rock fusion that mixes Nat King Cole with Billy Idol, but you just try to focus on it to keep your leg from bouncing. You always get anxious like this when you come in for an appointment, even though you always tell yourself the same thing. It’s just hair. If you don’t like it, it’ll grow back. Or, if worst comes to worst, you could always shave it.
You hear your name being called, and you look up to the person who’d just approached the waiting area around the partition that blocks off the styling area. You blink, your mind going fuzzy as you try to make sense of what you see.
“Looks like I’ll be cutting your hair today,” the man standing at the end of the row of chairs says, with a grin that puts boyish dimples on his cheeks. “I’m Eddie.”
Eddie the Hairdresser is a bit more than you can handle right now. Between his long, curly hair, and the shirt he wears that gives you a view of the tattoos crawling up his arms, you think your knees might already be made out of jelly as you try to stand. But then he sticks out his hand for you to shake, and he’s wearing big, chunky rings that glint in the light, and you think you might swoon like a Victorian damsel.
“I’m, uh–” you begin intelligently, as you fit your hand into his big one. He squeezes just the tiniest bit and smirks at you. “I– I’m trying to, uh–”
“First time?” Eddie asks you with a tilt of his head. His brown eyes crease at the edges with mirth.
“Oh, um, no,” you mutter, looking everywhere but at his dimples. He has a tattoo on his neck of a dragon. You stare at it for a moment too long. “I used to come and see Melissa, forever ago.” 
“Oh! Yeah, Melissa was great. She trained me,” Eddie starts jabbering as he tilts his head and leads you around the partition. You’re met with the smell of hairspray and the sound of blow dryers getting louder. “She’s a hard act to follow, but I hope I can do well enough. Let’s get you started with a wash, hm?” 
You smile as he winks at you conspiratorially. You always feel a little bit awkward as you sit in the chair for the wash sinks, but Eddie ushers you into it with a little wave of his hand and gently– more gently than you can remember even Melissa being– lifts the ends of your hair and places a soft towel around your shoulders.
“What kept you away all this time?” Eddie asks pleasantly as he tests the water temperature. “Melissa’s been gone for a while.”
“Yeah, I, uh, I was working a lot,” you stumble into an explanation, your cheeks heating up a bit. It’s hard not to feel like you need to repent for not coming in to get a trim every month. “Last time I came in, I got my hair cut really short, so it wasn’t like I needed to come in for a trim for a long time, and by the time I really needed one it was long enough that I could do it myself… so, I just kept doing that.”
“So, what are we doing today?” Eddie inquires as his fingertips brush along your temples to tuck your hair back behind your ears and into the wash basin. With gentle prompting, he tilts your head back into the bin and begins to wet the ends of your hair.
“I figured it’s time I go short again,” you tell him, more confident than you really feel about it. It was a split second decision, one that you made because the reflection in the mirror was looking back at you with such a dead expression that you decided you needed a change in a bad way. For a lighter note, you supplement, “I’m tired of brushing tangles out of my hair every morning, and the other day I had a whole bird’s nest at the back of my neck, y’know.”
“Pssh, I know all about tangles. You saw my hair,” Eddie chuckles as the lukewarm water touches your scalp. Goosebumps rise on your arms while he rambles on, “I have to comb my hair wet or else I look like I got electrocuted. I never used to care about that sort of thing before I went to school for this, but once you start learning about proper treatment it’s kind of hard to ignore. I used to wash my hair with bar soap. Dry as hell, no conditioner. I’m surprised I got it long to begin with.” 
You find yourself smiling just thinking about it. “Bar soap? With those curls?”
“Don’t tell anyone, my reputation will be ruined,” Eddie leans down and whispers to you while he reaches for a bottle of shampoo. You hear a crack of a bottle cap, and then his hands are in your hair again, working the sweet smelling soap into your roots. “I’m trying to get employee of the month, but they’re never gonna give it to me if they know I used to sabotage my own hair with Irish Spring.”
“Your secret’s safe with me,” you tell him sweetly, but you’re barely paying attention to his words anymore. His fingers are pressing into areas on your head that haven’t had a proper massage in forever, and months of tension headaches are being brought to the forefront of your mind. 
You never consider how oddly intimate having someone wash your hair is until you’re in the thick of it. Eddie’s thumbs massage circles into your occipitals with just a perfect amount of pressure, and the muscles down the back of your neck slowly melt and relax, moving with the swell of his fingertips. You suddenly feel very relaxed and very sleepy, and your eyelids drift closed as Eddie’s thumbs trace the line of your skull up to your hairline.
It even takes a moment for you to tune into the fact that he’s humming. Under his breath, he’s singing along to the notes of the song on the PA. He’s doing it in such a way that you’re sure he’s not even aware of it, himself, and you’d comment on it if you weren’t afraid that you’d embarrass him. His fingers are massaging circles around your temples now, and while you’re trying to focus on the sound of him harmonizing with the music, your mind is again trying to distract you with the feeling developing at the base of your spine. A ticklish, warm feeling spreads between your hips, disrupting the lull you find yourself in and forcing you to blink your eyes open. 
Oh, no. We’re not doing that right now.
You can’t say you’re surprised that this is your response. His hands are all over your head and you haven’t been touched by anyone in… well, a very long time, to say the least. You’re probably a little starved for it, all things considered. But this is really the wrong time and place to be getting turned on by a guy’s touch.
You shift in your seat, trying not to be too obvious about it when Eddie pulls his hands away and begins rinsing your hair again. Crossing your legs would be a dead giveaway, but the warm feeling is turning into a subtle throb between your legs, and Eddie’s hands are back on your head, now gently combing the conditioner through the length of your hair as though he’s petting you.
After a few torturous minutes of trying to ignore the blooming arousal deep in your gut, Eddie cuts the water and wraps your hair in the towel to secure it. 
“Now comes the hard part,” Eddie says, probably not meaning to make it sound so suggestive, but your mind seems to be taking its sweet time loitering in the gutter. 
You stare dazedly up at the ceiling. Now is the hard part?
Eddie leads you to what used to be Melissa’s station, and swings the swivel chair around for you with a flourish. “Step into my office, sweetheart. I’ll get you all dressed up in a sexy robe and everything.” 
You stifle a giggle as you slide into the seat. His “office” is one table in a row of other tables, and two feet away an older woman is getting her hair bleached by a girl with an undercut. As Eddie spins you around, the stylist shoots him a look. 
“He’s a shameless flirt,” she tells you, making eye contact with you in the mirror. Eddie lays a smock across your front and buttons it at the back of your neck.
“I’ll have you know, I’ve been minding my manners very well,” Eddie huffs with feigned indignation as he unwraps your hair and tosses the towel onto the table in front of you. He still winks at you in the mirror when he leans around you to pick up a comb. “So far.”
You can’t help the way that your jaw clenches. He’s really not going to make this easy on you. You wonder if he knows where your mind has been for the last ten minutes.
Eddie moves around to the back of your chair and presses on a lever to raise it up, but nothing happens. 
“Dammit,” Eddie curses under his breath, and turns to his coworker, who’s still loading tinfoil into the woman’s hair until she looks like something from Close Encounters. “I can’t believe you gave me the crap chair.”
“Early birds get the good chairs,” the stylist replies. 
Eddie sighs and turns back to you, and finds you looking at him curiously in the mirror. “This is the only broken chair in the whole salon, and everyone hates it, so it tends to move around. You never know if you’ll get the crap chair.”
“That’s sabotage,” you giggle.
“I know! So I have to bend down to style you, I’m sorry.”
“I think I can handle it.” You watch him give you a look in the mirror that makes you shift in your seat again. 
“So,” he begins, looking down at your head as he begins detangling your hair. “We’re going short?”
“That’s the plan,” you say with a puff of your chest. Please, god, don’t let it be horrible. 
“How short?” he prompts, eyeing you in the mirror. “Shoulder length? Close cropped?”
You reach up a slightly shaky hand and pinch the length that you want between two fingers. “Here’s good.”
Eddie nods, looking somewhat pleased. “Are we doing layers?”
“Yeah, I think layers would be good for the long term.” 
“Gives you more flexibility,” he agrees. He picks up a pair of scissors and begins measuring out the length that you want. “I’ll start with the length and then we’ll move to bangs, all right?” 
“That… sounds good.” You’re temporarily discombobulated by Eddie taking the sides of your head and tilting your head down just the slightest bit. 
“Stay just like that for me, okay?” he says quietly.
You blink down at the table in front of you, feeling your mouth go dry. “No problem.” Your hands nervously twitch beneath the cover of the smock across your body.
He goes back to humming along with the music on the PA, and you don’t have the heart to interrupt him. You’re trying to focus on anything but the nerves in your system and the way his touch keeps making you want to jump out of your seat.
After a moment, he stops humming and dusts a bit of hair off of your shoulder. “There we go. Good girl.” 
You blink up at Eddie in the mirror, and then see the transformation from long hair to short on your head. 
“How does it feel?” Eddie asks, leaning down to pinch the ends of the front and measure the evenness of the length. You stare at his fingers, and the tattoo of a bat just above his thumb on his left hand.
“Ten pounds lighter,” you joke. It feels like you’ve swallowed a lump of hot coal, but he doesn’t need to know that. Eddie grins, and his dimples make a glorious reappearance. 
“I’m not done with you yet,” he murmurs, and again positions your head where he wants it, staring directly forward. “Honestly, even if you wanted to stop here, it would suit you. I don’t think there’s a way to make you look bad, sweetheart.”
“You’ve never seen me with a hangover,” you scoff, trying to ignore how your heart skips a beat. 
Eddie smirks at you in the mirror while he starts working on giving your hair layers. “My guess is that you still look just as cute, but with a bit more of a grumpy look around here.” He gestures to your brow with one finger, and reaches over to set aside the texturizing scissors. 
“So, what I’m hearing is, you think I’m cute?” you say, still trying to play up the confidence that you don’t really have. Your hand squeezes your thigh under the smock you wear, your nails digging in for purchase.
“No, I think you’re gorgeous,” Eddie says swiftly, like it’s just a matter of fact. “But, I think you’d also be cute when you’re hungover. Plus, with this hair, you’d probably look all unkempt and I love the mental image that’s creating.”
His hands fluff the layers that he’s put into your hair, ruffling them gently and carding his fingers through them to measure their length. You’re sure that he’s not aware of the moon-eyed look you’re giving him in the mirror. 
Except, then he moves around you to start working on your bangs, and the smirk that comes across his face when he looks down at yours is enough to make you lose your composure. He knows everything that’s going on in your head, you’re sure of it. 
Cocky bastard.  
“I like your tattoos,” you murmur, just loud enough for him to hear over the music and the sounds of blow dryers all around you. He’s face to face with you, so close that you can count the freckles on his pale face.
Eddie’s eyes light up. “Yeah? What about ‘em?” 
“Well,” you lick your lips, your eyes flicking down to the one on his neck, and the one peeking out of his collar. “They’re colorful, and they look like you put a lot of thought into picking out each one. They’re pretty.”
“Hmm. You flatter me,” he remarks, trying to hide his grin and failing. If you look closely, there’s just the slightest pink tint to his cheeks that wasn’t there before. He finishes trimming your bangs, and just before he stands up, he chucks you lightly under the chin. “Keep it up and you might get a freebie.”
A free what? You’re imagining he means some sort of a free hair wash or something, but you can’t keep your mind from going to unprecedented places. 
“All right. Bear with me, I’m gonna blow dry you now.” He turns your chair away from the mirror to get you a bit closer to the blow dryer, and for a few minutes, there’s a lull in the conversation. 
Then, all at once, the blow dryer shuts off, and Eddie leans down towards you. “Ready, sweetheart?”
“Eddie, you’re gonna make me nervous.”
“Well, we don’t want that.” You just barely turn your head to look at him; just enough that your noses barely brush. You steal a breath that comes from his mouth, and then, Eddie turns you to the mirror. “Like I said,” he murmurs, “There’s not a way to make you look bad.”
“Holy shit,” you breathe. And holy shit is right– he’s done a complete number on you. Your hair is voluminous, framing your face in a way that you haven’t seen it before.  
“What do you think?” he asks, and for a moment, you think it’s a rhetorical question.
“I think you’re way better than Melissa,” you tell him, once you realize that it’s not rhetorical and he’s really asking you what you think. You’re sure that he’d make adjustments if you needed, but you don’t need him to. He’s read you like a book. He’s made you look better than you could ever have hoped for. 
“I’m gonna need that in writing,” he tells you, with the most serious expression you’ve ever seen. “For employee of the month, and all.”
“Tell me where to sign.”
He jerks his head, and all at once the fog lifts. You follow him to the front desk like a lost puppy, feeling like you don’t actually want to leave. You want to sit in his chair while he cuts your hair until you have none left. You want to keep his attention on you and stare at his smile, his hair, his eyes, his tattoos, for the rest of time. 
“I look forward to next time, princess,” he tells you, but you’re hyperfocused on the touch of his hand to your lower back. 
You watch him telling something to the girl at the front desk, his hand wrapped around the edge of the table and distracting you for the umpteenth time. You watch his silver rings glint in the light, and you think about them weaving through your hair; you think about his fingers and how they’d feel on places besides your head.
“So, when did you want to schedule an appointment?” 
You blink a few times, and in a dazed glow you come back to where you are. At the front desk. Paying for your haircut. “Sorry, what?” 
“The… next appointment? For your trim?” The secretary tilts her head, smiling at you kindly. “When did you want to come in?”
“Oh,” you murmur, looking down at the keyboard that she’s typing on. Eddie has disappeared back around the partition with a sweet smile and a wave cast in your direction. You just want him to come back again. “What would you suggest? Y’know, for this kind of a cut?”
“Hmm,” the girl hums, and sizes you up. Not in a way that makes you doubt yourself, but in a way that tells you she’s taking your question seriously. “Probably about four weeks. See if the length is something you’re happy with?” 
“Great. Four weeks from now. With Eddie.” You peer down at the rack of business cards on the deck, and pick up the one farthest to the right. 
Eddie Munson, Stylist. Set an appointment today!
Tumblr media
By four weeks, your hair has already reached your shoulders, and the ease of maintenance is starting to wear off. When you get a call reminding you about your appointment with Eddie, your head reels with the knowledge that you’ll see him again.
You calmly assert to yourself that this time, there will be no mooning over him. He’s just your hairdresser. You figure he just has a job to do, tips to earn, and so on. You don’t know if he’s available, you don’t know if he’s single or if he even likes you the way that you like him. You don’t know anything about him, really.
False. You know that he used to wash his hair with bar soap.
You snicker to yourself as you sit in the waiting area yet again. The only available slot for him today was 6:30; pretty close to closing time, but for a Wednesday you figured it was best for you to come late, since you’d have time to get yourself together after work.
You’ve never been in the salon so late. It’s getting dark outside, and the overhead lights cast a semi-yellow glow around the waiting area. Business is dying down now. Not as many people love the idea of getting their hair cut so late, you suppose, but it was either this or wait another week to get an appointment with Eddie, and with the rate that your hair is growing, you’d probably be going insane by then.
“Hey, you,” Eddie says, popping his head around the partition with a grin that makes you nearly melt in your seat. His curly hair hangs in a curtain out in midair, and his long neck stretches out for you to take a gander at. “Just couldn’t stay away, huh?”
You smile at him. “Well, you’re the only person I trust with my head.”
What the fuck did you just say?
Eddie smirks, glowing pink around the ears. “I’ll keep that in mind, princess. Let me clean up my station real quick and I’ll getcha goin’, all right?”
You swallow back the lump in your throat. “Yeah, sure, no worries.”
When Eddie disappears again, you slide down in your seat and clap your hand across your eyes. You’re sort of glad that nobody was in the waiting room to see that ridiculous exchange, but you still have to sit with your embarrassment while Eddie cuts your hair. Again.
There will be no pining. There will be no getting weirdly turned on by him washing your hair. Nope, not happening this time.
This time, when Eddie ushers you back behind the partition, there’s only one two other stylists who are there cleaning their stations. The PA has been turned way down, so you can barely register what it’s playing at all.
“You actually came at a good time,” Eddie tells you as you trail after him toward the wash station. “You’re the last person for the night, so I can really take my time with you.”
“O-oh.. really?” You beat back your perverted thoughts with a stick. “To do what?”
“Oh, y’know,” Eddie shrugs as he lays a towel around your shoulders again, just as gentle as he was the last time. “We could do something totally crazy. Who knows what’ll happen?”
His voice is animated, pleasantly filling the empty space where your thoughts might become too much if you let them wander. 
Over the past month, after you’d recovered from your last meeting with Eddie, and as you were preparing for this one, you came up with a few things that you could ask him about– just to keep your mind from going to places you didn’t want them to. To save yourself the embarrassment and the ordeal of having to play whack-a-mole with your libido, and all. 
“Did you get employee of the month?” you begin with.
Eddie laughs, and then sighs. “No, our manicurist got it. I’ll get it this time, I just gotta stay on my A-game.” His blunt nails rake your hair away from your forehead and temples, and a lukewarm stream of water hits the crown of your skull.
You nearly want to jump out of your skin at the feeling. “Was it because they gave you the crap chair too many times?”
“Probably. But I got here early today, so the good news is you don’t have to sit in the crap chair this time.” 
“Aww, I kind of liked the crap chair. Kept me grounded.” You hear him huff a laugh as he starts lathering shampoo through your hair. Trying to keep your mind running so you don’t focus too hard on how good his rings feel scraping against your scalp, you ask, “How’d you get into this line of work?”
“Honestly, it’s kind of a weird story,” Eddie starts, beginning to massage his fingertips into your skull in a way that makes your toes curl in your shoes. You tighten your hands on the arms of your chair and take a deep breath. “So, it took me three tries to graduate high school, right? I was terrible at it. And, y’know, I figured I’d only end up working in a garage or something for the rest of my life. But I was cutting my mane all on my own, and eventually I started cutting my friends’ hair too, because they were all in college and it’s cheaper than going to a salon. I mean–” he chuckles, and begins rinsing your hair– “believe me. I know all about it. And it just came to me really easily, ‘cause I used to be great at drawing and crafting and stuff. And it’s kind of the same thing– once you learn the medium, it’s smooth sailing from there.”
The salon has gone eerily quiet, and by the time Eddie wraps your head and sits you up, you realize that the other stylists have gone, and you and Eddie are the last people in the building. You’d be a little nervous about it, but you got Eddie on a roll, and honestly, he makes it so easy to listen to him.
“Anyways, one day my friend Robin says to me, ‘You should totally get your credential for this,’ and I said, ‘You have to go to school for this shit?’” You blow a raspberry of a laugh, no longer feeling anxious as he sits you down on his not-crap styling chair. He drapes a smock over you, and cracks a grin at you in the mirror. “I know! So, I’ve never been great at school, and I can’t afford to pay for beauty school tuition on the pay I was making at the time, so my friends… they pooled together some money to at least pay for my first semester. And then– get this– I got on the fucking Dean’s list.”
“No way.”
“I did! Yours truly!” He does a little bow, and while you’re still giggling, he begins detangling your hair. “So, I got grants. And I finished top of my class, because as it turns out, when you don’t hate what you’re studying it’s really easy to do well. I got my certification framed and everything. Show that to my damn high school principal.” He shakes his head, but the smile is still on his face when he says, “But now I just have to get that fucking employee of the month.” 
“Anything I can do to help?” you offer, admiring his face in the mirror again without even realizing you’re doing it. You love seeing him grin, showing off his dimples and the smile lines around his eyes.
“Oh, you know,” he shrugs with a cute scrunch of his nose. “Just make sure you write my boss a letter saying how fantastic and amazing I am and how there’s no other hair stylist like me and how you’ll never find anyone as cool and sexy anywhere else. Something subtle like that oughta do it.” 
“Shouldn’t be difficult,” you tell him smoothly. “I already had that one drafted.”
He chuckles, his eyes sparkling when he reaches for his scissors, but you still notice the faint blush on his cheeks that he tries to hide behind his curtain of hair. “Flattery. You know what that gets you with me.”
A freebie. You hear his voice echoing in your head, and you swallow past the dryness in your throat. “Like… what? A mohawk?”
“Would you want a mohawk?” he asks you, pausing his movements to peer at you. “Because that’d be metal as hell, I’d be so down.” 
You laugh. “I appreciate it, but I think… probably not today.”
Eddie hums, and returns to smoothing your hair back away from your face. “So we’re just doing the same as last time?” 
“Yeah, not too flashy.” 
“Gotcha. It’s a shame, though. I’m always up for a challenge.” 
“Well, I think that short hair is just easier to maintain,” you tell him, at a loss for what else to say. He glances up at you in the mirror, and locks eyes with you. “And it doesn’t make my neck look as stumpy as it is.”
Eddie tilts his head with a confused pout, and then he reaches down and wraps his hands loosely around your throat. Your breath stalls in your chest, your eyes focused on the sight of his hands on you, his thumbs gently stroking the nape of your neck and his ring clad fingers pressed just below your chin. His fingers link and hold you, creating a necklace that you’ll never be able to find anywhere else.
Oh, shit. Oh, fucking hell. Everything below your waist draws up tight and hard, your thighs clamping together like that’s going to somehow will away the hold that Eddie has on you.
You lift your eyes and find his in the mirror, dark and focused in on you. You hold each others’ gaze for a prolonged moment, not saying anything, you barely even daring to breathe. You can’t imagine what the expression on your face looks like. You’re too busy staring at the one on his– like there are a million thoughts running through his head, and you’re desperate to know every single one of them.
“Nah, I think you’re perfect.” And just like that, Eddie moves on like nothing happened, picking up his scissors again. Like he didn’t just fry your brain. Like you’re not halfway to cardiac arrest.
You’re dumbstruck as he starts trimming the ends of your hair. You told yourself there would be no mooning over him. No pining. But here, you are, turned on beyond belief, and having to deal with the heartbeat pulsing between your legs, and not shift around, because you don’t want to fuck him up. 
When he pinches the ends of the front to see if they’re level, you’re staring directly at him in the mirror. Not even trying to hide it, either. If you did try, you’d most certainly fail. Eddie frowns in concentration, a bit of a crease to his brow as he peers at his hands.
Eddie tuts. “I’m trying to figure out– is it–?” He grabs the back of your chair, and suddenly you’re being swiveled around to face him. “Sometimes these mirrors don’t even help a guy out at the worst goddamn times…”
Your breathing is way heavier than it needs to be. Is it hot in here? Did they crank up the heat in this place specifically to spite you? Eddie’s face is so close to yours, and you’re not sure if the fact that you aren’t in the crap chair is helping. You’re higher up now, and he doesn’t have to bend down as far to get level with you, and his eyes are the color of dark chocolate, and you–
Eddie’s hand comes up and snips the tip off the right side. “There we go. One side was all fucked.”
“Well, we don’t want anything getting fucked, do we?” you mutter under your breath. What’s left of it.
Eddie pauses and his eyes flick up to yours. His eyelashes are long and flutter as he holds your gaze again, while you try hard not to look away. There’s that unreadable expression on his face from earlier, morphing slowly into something like amusement, but that could also just be your mind playing tricks on you. Don’t look at his lips. Don’t look at his lips. Don’t look at his li–
“Screw it.” Eddie tosses his scissors to the ground and his hands come up to grip your face, smoothing your hair back tenderly before he kisses you. 
You open your mouth and Eddie is in it, searching, feeling. His hands hold your head firm and you feel the metal of his rings digging into your cheeks, and you’re splitting apart at the seams from the way he’s completely invading your senses. He smells like warm, spicy cologne and hairspray. He tastes like cigarettes and cherry coke. He moans into you, and the sound is like heaven. 
You lift your legs and wrap them around his waist, and he grunts before he pulls away just the tiniest bit to give you breathing room. 
“This is highly unprofessional, Mr. Munson,” you whisper to him, as if you don’t have him caged in with your thighs.
“I don’t… actually fucking care,” Eddie admits, his nose just nudging against yours. “Got so fuckin’ hard the minute I saw you. What am I gonna do with you, huh?”
“Dunno,” you murmur against his mouth, “I’m waiting for you to tell me.” 
“C’mere.” He pulls you out of your seat, and you practically trip over the smock he clipped around your neck. 
“Get me out of this thing,” you giggle, letting your forehead fall onto his shoulder. You inhale a deep breath of his cologne, feeling his chest shake with his laugh. 
“Aww, but you look so cute,” Eddie coos, but his hands come up to undo the button at the back of your neck. The fabric slides to the ground, and Eddie kicks it aside as he crowds you back against the table. Your ass hits the edge of it and your hand falls onto a comb when you try to steady yourself. He pulls you flush to his body, his hands caging you in. Eddie’s tongue dances over your bottom lip and you moan, lifting your hands to tangle in the fabric of his shirt.
He ducks his head to help you pull his shirt off before he tosses it somewhere to the side. You’re distracted by his tattoos, each one of them beautiful and detailed, standing out against his pale skin.
Then, you remember something that he told you earlier, and you connect some dots that you hadn’t even realized were there. “Did you draw these?” 
Eddie’s grin could blind the sun. He blushes pink down his neck and shoulders. “Yeah, I did.” 
“They’re gorgeous. I meant what I said before– I really like them.” 
He sucks in a deep breath, and then his lips are on you, everywhere they can manage. On your face, your neck, trying to get at your collarbone but your shirt is in the way. He fists it in his hands, making a petulant noise in the back of his throat. “Help me out here, sweetheart.”
Your shirt lands somewhere near his. You don’t see exactly where, because he’s pulling the straps of your bra down your shoulders so that he can mouth kisses across your breasts, pulling down on the cups until he can graze his teeth over your nipple. It takes you so off guard that you bite back a squeal, tugging at his hair and rubbing your thighs together to stave off the incessant throbbing between them.
When you look down at him, his eyes are so dark that they’re almost black. Your heart thuds erratically in your chest, your breath not coming even though you gasp and pull at the air with everything you have. You can’t really fathom why he has you so worked up– just that it’s been so long since anyone touched you like this, and now that you have it it’s like every little point of contact is on fire.
Eddie grazes his teeth across your breast, and your knees nearly buckle out from under you. You grab his face, guiding him back up to you. 
“What were you thinking when you grabbed my throat?” you ask him, your voice hoarse in the back of your throat. 
His hands are on you now, grabbing at your waist and hips, squeezing like he’ll never let go. “I can show you, if you want,” Eddie answers, and he sounds just as wrecked as you. Maybe more. 
There’s absolutely no way you’re going to refuse that. Not with the way you’ve been lusting after him since meeting him. You nod. “Eddie, please–”
He kisses you hard again before mumbling against your lips, “Turn around and take off your pants.”
You do what he asks without a second’s hesitation. You watch him in the mirror as he follows your movements, undoing his own belt, and you kick your jeans and underwear off without thinking about why you’re here, without wondering about the repercussions. You figure you can probably do that later.
Right now, Eddie’s smoothing his hand up your spine, and the feeling of his fingers dancing along your skin sends shivers through your body. His fingers weave through the hair at the nape of your neck, and he pulls just slightly, until you bare your neck. 
Your breath hitches in your throat. Your heart hammers as you watch him, dark eyes and hair and rosy cheeks in the mirror, his carnation colored lips twisting into a wicked grin at you. He kisses your shoulder so gently it’s like the fluttering of a feather. 
“‘Stumpy neck,’” Eddie scoffs under his breath, and you tremble. “You’ve gotta be fuckin’ kidding me.”
He bends you forward until you’re face to face with yourself in the mirror– but you’re looking at him, gazing into your eyes while he teases himself at your entrance.
“Oh my god,” you groan, dropping your head almost immediately at the feeling. Your head is spinning, your body rigid with anticipation and breaking out in a cool sweat already. 
“Mm-mm,” Eddie hums condescendingly, and a hand clamps around your throat, hoisting your head up again. A gasp tears from your lips. In the mirror, his eyes are blazing. “You look at me while I fuck you. That’s the only way this is gonna happen. Got it?”
You nod. You want to shrink away from the heat in his gaze, but you want him to fuck you way more than that. You shudder as he leans forward, pressing in until his chin nearly rests on your shoulder.
“I need to hear you say it, baby.” His thumb strokes lightly along your pulse point, and you make a soft noise in the back of your throat without thinking. “Tell me you understand.” 
“I understand,” you tell him, barely a whisper, but he hears it all the same. 
“Good girl.” 
Eddie grins, kisses the nape of your neck, and pulls back. When he does, you’re barely able to take a breath before he pushes his hard cock into you, and the noise you make is almost embarrassing in its volume. 
“Ohhh, you’re absolutely soaked, baby. She’s practically dripping– is this just for me?” Eddie murmurs in your ear, grinding his hips up against your ass for emphasis. The lewd noise that it makes has your toes curling and the tips of your ears burning.
“Fuck,” you moan, ginding back against him to push him deeper. He’s so thick and you’re so sensitive that your mind is completely blanking at the feeling. 
Eddie notices, and he chuckles as grabs your waist with one hand as he thrusts his hips forward. “I’ve barely gotten my cock in you, princess. Don’t go getting all dumb on me already.” His voice goes straight between your legs and your cunt pulses around him, making him hiss through his teeth. The hand on your throat tightens just slightly. “I asked you a question.”
You keen, your mind reeling as you search for words. You manage to nod, babbling out, “Yes, it’s– it’s all for you, Eddie, been wanting you so bad, s’all I can think about–”
Eddie coos, grabbing your chin to shut you up while a particularly hard thrust of his hips knocks the wind out of you. He turns his head and grazes his lips against your cheek, eyeing you in the mirror as he says, “I knew it.” 
Your eyes are on him, on his hand around your neck, on his rings pressed into your skin. All that your fucked-out mind can think is that it’s hot, and you like him and his strong hands and his pretty eyes and the way his cock is reaching places inside you that make thoughts really difficult to come by.
Eddie whispers something against your skin, and you miss it because you’re hooked on the way his eyelashes flutter for just a moment while his lips are pressed against your cheek. You lift your hand, until it rests over his against your throat, his fingers just barely laced with yours. 
“Again,” you say– it comes out like a command, but you mean it like a question. You don’t know what the fuck he just said. 
“You’re so beautiful,” he repeats, and his voice nearly cracks with the desperation in it. His sweat slick chest is pressed against your back, his thrusts rocking your hips into the table and jostling it into the wall, but his voice is so tender. “So perfect for me.” 
Your mouth falls open, your hand tightening on his. You pull, until he loosens his grip and his hand comes away with yours. You kiss his palm, then his fingertips, holding his gaze in the mirror as you slowly, gently swirl your tongue around his middle and forefinger. 
Eddie’s eyes narrow coyly at you, while his thrusts make you mewl and clutch at the table with your free hand. You suck his two fingers deep into your mouth, earning a pleased groan from him in your ear– a sound which you want to hear again and again, no matter what it takes. 
“Look at you, sweet little thing, gettin’ my fingers all wet like that,” he whispers to you, biting his lip as you grind back against him. “Wanna do something with ‘em?”
You moan, letting his fingers slide from your mouth with a wet pop. You guide his hand down your chest, down your stomach, until his fingers slide between your legs. 
“There you go,” Eddie coos, taking over from your guidance as his fingers start rubbing small circles against your clit. “Atta girl, showin’ me what you want. Just needed me to fuck you stupid first, hm?”
Your cunt pulses, and you cum with a loud moan that echoes off of the mirror in front of you and around the empty space. Eddie cries out, and you feel his warmth fill you as he cums. He slows until he stills inside you, and then he holds you, panting against your cheek, his arm wrapped around your middle and his hand on your throat.
You haven’t moved your hand away from his, you realize, after a few moments of bliss in the aftershocks. You drop your hand to the table with a thud, earning a soft, breathless chuckle from him. 
“Can I take you out to dinner?” Eddie asks you, nuzzling into the crook of your neck.
“I think you can do whatever you want with me,” you murmur dazedly, just barely shifting and making him hiss. He’s still inside you, trying to hold you steady while he calms himself down. 
“Good.” There’s a kiss to your cheek, and Eddie grunts as he slowly eases out of you. “I still need to finish your goddamn haircut.”
“Eddie, we’re naked.” 
“And?” His hands are moving quicker than your mind is, yanking a kleenex from the table so that he can bend down and wipe the insides of your thighs. You jump at the sudden touch, but he clamps a hand around your hip to hold you still. “The sooner I finish your hair, the sooner I close up, and the sooner we go get dinner. You like Italian?”
“I didn’t think your pillow talk would involve finishing my haircut,” you grumble, but there’s a smile worming it’s way onto your face even as you say it. 
“That’s the name of the game, sweetheart,” Eddie says, tossing the tissue into the trash. He picks up your underwear, and the smock from the floor. “Now, sit your cute ass down. I’m not gonna get employee of the month by dishing out orgasms and not bangs, y’know.”
2K notes · View notes
starlit-typewriter · 1 month
Text
Genshin SAGAU, Creator of Teyvat, but not Humanity Part 1
Playing around with the idea of The creator of Teyvat, not being the creator of humanity.
Masterlist | Next Part
~~~
You were never much of a gamer.
Not that you disliked games of course, but it never quite clicked with you the way it did others. You’d try a couple of games on and off, but there would always be a point where it’d become boring.
Not that there was anything bad about the games themselves, you freely complimented the design and effort it goes into making these masterful pieces of art and code.
You just, weren't a gamer.
Until Genshin Impact
You can still remember the day you heard of it.
You were chatting with friends and one of them brought up this new game they saw a promotion for that they were interested in trying.
It was this anime-esque gacha game.
They showed you a couple trailers and promotional materials, and you must admit they were quite appealing.
However you didn’t intend to try it, knowing that you’d eventually drop it and move on.
But your friend still pestered you, claiming that there’s no harm in trying and dropping another game, after all it’s free anyways, so you’re not losing out on anything monetary.
Skeptical, you joined them in trying out the game.
And
Well
Let’s just say your friend got more than a couple of “I told you so’s” that day
It was beautiful.
The art, the music, the characters.
Everything about this game just, clicked.
You understand why people got so obsessed with certain games.
Why they would be willing to pay for things such as this.
Why this is such a large industry.
It’s, well it’s fun.
It was honestly quite frightening how quickly the game pulled you in.
You never understood the term “completionist”, until it started to apply to you.
Every quest, every domain, every achievement
You did it all
Every dialogue, every story, every entry in the archive.
You read it all.
You scoured the forums for bits of lore, and shrieked with your friend every time something new was dropped.
Genshin was all consuming.
It was honestly quite concerning, if it weren’t for the fact it was time gated with its resin cap and limited content, your outside life probably would’ve suffered.
On some level you probably knew that this was not normal. Your friends who were all gamers as well were never as obsessed over a single game as you were over Genshin.
But you reassured yourself, this is the first game that made you feel this way, its natural for you to go a little overboard.
I’m sure it’ll die down as I try out other games.
But you never really did.
No other game, no matter how popular or similar or highly rated.
Other games from Hoyoverse fared slightly better in terms of attention span.
But you always went back to Genshin.
Not that it bothered you.
Genshin was enough, considering you still had real world responsibilities to balance.
And that was that.
Until, well.
Until Fontaine.
You see, you’d always enjoyed the characters of Teyvat.
But you’ve never quite simped after them the way the fanbase did.
You admired their aesthetics and enjoyed their stories. But they never quite drew you in.
Even your main, was quite honestly determined by meta and whatever character you’ve managed to get your hands on.
There was never a “waifu” or “husbando”.
It was always the world and story that drew you in rather than individual characters.
Iudex Neuvillette was an exception.
The exception
He felt right.
You immediately knew you had to pull for him.
So you did.
And playing him was amazing. He was as meta breaking as you’d hoped and, well, you just liked him.
“Your first official Husbando” your friends would tease. You understand why they would go such lengths for a specific character now.
He was special.
He was a Dragon.
He felt, right.
You quite never understood why
Not until you entered the world of Teyvat.
That story,
Well,
That begins from the other side of the screen.
~~~
“I bet we can definitely open up a whole new sector in Fontaine if all goes well don't you think?” Hu Tao chattered as she and Zhongli strolled back to Liyue Harbor.
Zhongli hummed in agreement, only half paying attention to the conversation. He could tell Hu Tao noticed, since she was keeping the topic of conversation to light topics that anyone with half a mind could parse through. Only enough relevance so that he wouldn’t get lost in thought, but not so much that he had to focus on the conversation.
She was considerate like that, he knew since she had let many of his oddities slide, especially when he was still adjusting to mortal life.
Not that he was free from old habits mind you.
Zhongli doubted he would ever truly be able to blend into a crowd of mortal without some level of adept arts concealing his presence, however he was able to blend in enough so that the average nosy person was able to wave off his eccentricities a simply a facet of his personality rather than something deeper.
He cannot forget that it was thanks to people such as Hu Tao who were willing to let him in without many questions that allowed him to get to this point. Something he will be forever grateful for.
Be that as it may, it did not change the fact that some things will forever be kept secret.
His near encounter with the Hydro dragon for one.
Even from the other side of Qiaoying village where he’d made himself scarce, he could feel the amount of blessings placed upon the man.
He truly was favored by the creator.
Not that that was any surprise.
What was surprising was his own blessing.
Though much smaller, he still treasured the gift given to him by the creator of Teyvat.
Teyvat, after all, was a world of Dragons.
It was due to the advent of The Primordial One, did they lose their authority.
Not that many people knew.
Most people didn’t
The true History and creation of Teyvat was kept tightly wrapped, even the most learned scholars of the Akademiya could only infer at what truly happened, as well as the origin of humanity.
The true name of the creator was lost to time, only their title of the creator of Teyvat remaining. The mortals who lived on Teyvat daren’t give them another for fear of evoking their wrath.
They had plenty to be wrathful about.
Zhongli would only imagine his own rage, if anything similar happened to Liyue.
Imagine putting in centuries upon centuries of work only for an outsider to come in, destroy your work and reshape it for their own people. Before proceeding to have the audacity to name him as a contributor to their success and praise alongside such an usurper.
Just imagining it makes him angry.
That is why, the creator’s title is rarely evoked.
Names have power after all.
Names of gods even more so.
To evoke their name, their title, is to ask for attention.
Attention that would be safer left elsewhere.
Not that mortals knew the true reason.
The commonly accepted reasoning was that the creator of Teyvat has long turned their gaze elsewhere, satisfied with the current ruling of Teyvat, having entrusted their powers to Celestia and the Archons.
Zhongli would feel guilt at this blatant lie and rewriting of history if he could.
But he cannot, because to feel guilt would be to regret his actions and to wish something was different.
But he knew that he, along with all of humanity, Liyue Harbor, his Adepti and friends. They would not have existed, they would not have lived, has history played out justly.
The world is not just.
The world simply is.
He feared to an extent that the Hydro dragons would try to force a more cruel version of justice upon Fontaine, condemning them all as usurpers, when they had no idea, or even power over what had happened in the past.
Thankfully it seems that Focalors’s plan to integrate him into humanity worked. Stemming any sort of “justice” he may enact on humanity for the crimes of The Primordial One. In fact, he seems to have great fondness over humanity, absolving them of their sin and saving them from the prophecy that threatened Fontaine for so many centuries.
However, he knew that he was exempt from this mercy. Zhongli knew that when the time came, the Hydro dragon, or well Iudex Neuvillette would spare no effort in holding him accountable for his actions in usurping the original order of Teyvat.
Which is exactly why he avoided the man, dragon? as he did.
“-ello, earth to Zhongli, ”
Zhongli blinked, Hu Tao’s voice dragging him back to their situation at hand.
“Ah, my apologies, I seemed to have been lost in thought”
She clicked her tongue at him, “Aiyyaa, honestly Zhongli, I wonder sometimes if your age is getting to you, I was trying to get your attention for quite a while”
“Is that so,”
Zhongli couldn’t help but smile at her exaggerated groan.
“I was merely thinking about some old history,” he started, preparing himself to finish the history of Qiaoying village that he was telling Hu Tao on their way over.
“Oh no, there’s no need for that,” she waved off, a slight grimace on her face.
He knew how bored she was by the story the way over, so it served as a perfect distraction on the way back to stop her from questioning any further.
“Honestly a girl can only listen so much about the different varieties of teas and their subtle notes and flavoring before she has to burst yo know,” she complained.
“Well, the history of tea has a -”
“Oh look we’re almost there!” She pointed out, most likely in a desperate bid to stop him from droning on.
He was being slightly unfair to her, he knows, but it never ceases to become unassuming when people try to fake interest in a topic, only to regret it when they realize just how much there is to know about it.
Of course it can never compare to when someone has a genuine passion for the topic and wants to engage further, but those mortals are rare.
More often than not, he can use his vast knowledge as a smokescreen too, well, as Paimon would most likely put it. Bore people into leaving him alone.
He waves off Hu Tao as she bounces back home, and allows himself to take a stroll through the streets of Liyue Harbor.
The Lantern Rite was ending, another celebration successfully done under the hard work of the Qixing
He gazed around at all the sights, the lanterns, the food stalls, the beautiful atmosphere of people enjoying the celebration.
No
He could never regret what he did.
Not since it lead to peace and happiness like this.
And
If things are as he suspects.
He may never have too.
He feels it once more.
The glow of the creator's blessing.
He can feel it swirling within him as he steps through Liyue Harbor.
He wonders if they can see it as he does. Sees the beauty and resplendence of humanity.
Look, he wants to scream
They are nothing like The Primordial One
They are good, kind and beautiful.
Humans may not be your creation, they may not have originated from this world but that does not mean they do not deserve to stay.
But he doesn’t
First of all because he feels that screaming these things in the middle of a busy street may attract some weird looks.
But also out of fear, fear that any attempt to disrupt this fragile peace could lead to destruction.
Because it is fragile, it has only been a couple of years since the creator has turned their eyes to Teyvat.
Those who have been blessed have been careful in their own way not to destroy this chance that the creator has given them.
A chance to prove themselves, not only as people deserving of their attention and blessing, but as a people.
To prove themselves just as worthy of the dragons of staying in Teyvat.
Because they all know, in their hearts of hearts, that what the creator has created, they could just as easily destroy.
While some may tease him for his age, there is no denying that with age comes experiences that the younger generation may never know.
He himself, whilst having been born long after the disappearance of the creator, witnessed firsthand how it had affected the world.
How Godly remains tainted the earth for far longer than it used to.
How miasma and abyssal energy started to leak forth.
How Leyline disorders became more and more commonplace.
Teyvat was breaking.
It was falling apart.
But perhaps.
With this new chance, it could be fixed.
He could still remember the day the creator first turned their gaze upon Teyvat.
Or well, more specifically, the first time they turned their gaze on him.
He had heard rumors of an outlander from Mondstatdt making their way to Liyue. Tales of their feats and defeating Dvalin with the wayward Anemo Archon were as prevalent as talks about the upcoming Rite of Descension.
He had taken note of it of course, outlanders were rare after all, but he hadn’t expected this one to be quite, consequential.
Not until he met them.
He felt their approach funnily enough, the unbranded aura they carried within them. While he could’ve written it off as an aspect of their outlander status, internally he knew it not to be true.
He was far too young to have ever met the creator, or even the original dragons.
But he has stumbled upon their remnants.
Pure remnants, unlike the gnosis which have been twisted and altered by the time it had spent in the hands of The Primordial One.
It was, indescribable.
Free, yet grounded.
Unwavering yet fluid.
Swift yet languid.
It
It simply was
It was the essence of Teyvat.
The essence of the land he lived and fought and bled and laughed in.
How could he not worship it.
How could he not fear it.
He had felt Childe walk in with bated breath, distracting himself with his cup of tea to settle his nerves.
What did this mean?
Was this the end of Liyue, of humanity, of Teyvat?
Over the centuries people have accepted the creator’s complacency in the affairs of Teyvat.
What does it now mean that they have focused their gaze once more on this land.
Destruction
Salvation
He daren’t hope or guess.
But
Well,
The Traveler was kind.
They had no ill will towards the people of Teyvat.
While it was clear they had their own mission to stove for, they did not hesitate in helping those they can along the way.
If the creator has blessed one such as them, one so kind to humans, one with no ill will.
Perhaps.
A seed of hope planted itself in him, and refused to budge.
As time went on, the seed grew.
Hope grew.
The tiny seed of hope that he tried so hard to ignore and deny could be ignored no longer when he received a blessing himself.
He could still remember it so clearly.
It was a normal day, nothing out of the ordinary. He went to work, had tea, chatted with passersby.
There were no great feats.
No great revelations, or offerings.
Yet he felt it for the first time.
A blessing.
A pure, gentle, powerful blessing.
He could feel the sentiment behind it, weak as it was.
Relief, excitement, apprehension.
He wanted to cry, to pray. To thank them for giving him a chance, for giving the people of Teyvat a chance.
But fear held him back.
It still does to this day.
That’s the problem with gods, their pleasure and their wrath can often look the same.
Even as he compared notes with Barbatos and the Adepti, confirming that many of them have been given blessings.
While some like Ganyu, rejoiced in this blessing eager for a chance to prove themselves worthy of this world.
People such as him were still fearful.
Fearful of what this meant and what they wanted.
The straw that broke the camel’s back was when he realized that xiangling was also blessed.
Not that the girl knew, after all the creator was very rarely spoken of, only ever mentioned in ancient rites and the most descriptive of history books.
But she had the blessing, a human.
From that point he saw so many others, so many humans, mere mortals given their divine blessing and gaze.
An exorcist, an author, a member of the Qixing.
It spread across Teyvat, whispers as people soon realized that there was a god, an unknown god blessing them.
Granting them abilities beyond their visions, oftentimes enhancing them to levels beyond previously known human limits.
No one dared to say their name, they were insinuations, and speculations, but no one dared disturbed the fragile peace that has settled.
It is an understanding between those who have it.
Those who know, know and those who don’t are kept in the dark.
But it seems that the Creator has turned their gaze to Teyvat and to humans.
~~~~
Masterlist | Next Part
~~~~
Tell me what you guys think!
526 notes · View notes
bluegiragi · 1 month
Note
Could we have some more Monster AU lore? Literally about anything in the universe, I really love your lore drops.
well if you insist...(jk i love talking about lore and I'm so super happy you guys let me infodump like this!!)
who wants to learn about dragons and hoards?
So a lot of people mistake hoards as the result of a dragon's passing interests but in reality (for the types of dragon that have this hoard instinct) it's an intense and obsessive compulsion.
Dragons pack a lot of firepower into a relatively dense body, and hoards give them an opportunity to put all that energy somewhere by providing for a hoard's 'needs', whatever they are. In the old times, it was most common for dragons to hoard wealth, land or knowledge but as time went on the variety in subject expanded. Now, hoards can range from innocuous/harmless topics like baseball cards to more complex subjects (like literal living beings).
The darker side to hoard instinct is how intense and possessive it is - the desire to monopolise and satisfy the needs of a hoard is all-encompassing, and it's not unheard of for dragons to go too far. Just like dating, dragons typically go through a few hoards in their lifetime (like passing hyper-fixations) before they find the one thing that'll be their hoard until they die. And after they find that one thing, the rest of their life is in some way dedicated to protecting, caring for and 'leaving their mark' on that thing. A big part of maturing for dragons is learning the self restraint required to not let these urges overtake them and turn them senseless.
Of all topics, hoards that center living beings are by far the most complex simply because living beings have agency and can't be entirely controlled. Price's hoard is the 141, and he has learned over time how to respect the lives of his boys. However, right after his and Ghost's final clash with Roba which resulted in life-changing events for both of them, he realised that he'd already subconsciously made Ghost 'hoard' in his mind.
The two of them fell into a co-dependent and borderline toxic relationship during their recovery. For Ghost, it was a combination of trauma-bonding and also a way to deal with his new powers/afflictions as a wraith. For Price, the recent loss of his wing had him falling back on other measures to help cling onto his dragon identity, and he overcompensated by going way too far on what was already a very fresh and concentrated hoard response. Of course there was still sincere affection backing up all of this, but they both ended up spiralling into something together.
It's always tough being THE hoard starter, as whatever it is will get an exorbitant response that lessens the more a hoard grows. It didn't help that Simon was in one of the most vulnerable and complicated moments of his life post-wraith-transformation. The co-dependency and possessiveness got to a point where higher-ups had to re-instate Price earlier than they wanted to and begin sending him out on missions again so that they could have some time apart. On one of those missions, Price met Gaz, and then later on, Soap.
674 notes · View notes
neptuneiris · 11 months
Text
detachment (01/03)
letting go and accepting what we can't change. detaching from the choices of others.
pairing: prince!aemond × niece!reader
summary: aemond not only breaks your heart after so many love promises, he also breaks his betrothal to you without any justification and announces his betrothal to a baratheon girl. now you will be married soon too.
word count: 7.9k
next part • series masterlist
Tumblr media
Those had been his words before you left King's Landing and after you returned for an indefinite time due to the condition of your grandsire, King Viserys.
hello! i'm very happy to be back with a new story. new characters and new plot, now with our prince aemond🥰
comments and reblogs are always appreciated, thank you so much for reading, you are all awesome❣
Tumblr media
"I love you."
But he had really felt them?
Did Aemond Targaryen truly loved you?
For a time, both expressed their love and devotion for each other, proclaiming kisses, caresses and titles that they wanted to seal permanently with a Valyrian wedding.
The affection began as children. You were never mean to your uncle compared to your siblings and his older brother, Aegon. And fortunately Aemond always appreciated the good treatment he received from you.
And that good treatment led the two of you to start spending a lot of time together. By sharing a taste for literature, having interesting conversations about the history of your ancestors or even learning High Valyrian, you both formed a fondness and affection for each other.
There was never any objection from your mother, Princess Rhaenyra, about a friendship between her only daughter and her half-brother, the product of her father's second wife and once best friend.
Nevertheless, Alicent Hightower did have a problem.
When she began to notice her second son's affection for Princess Rhaenyra's daughter, she had to forbid him to spend time with you with more than strict measures and supervision.
"Mother said I must not spend time with you. She said that our duties are different and that I cannot learn embroidery with you and you cannot learn to use a sword with me."
He had told you once when the two of them met in the library sneaking around in the middle of the night with a sorrowful look and a sad tone of voice.
"My mother has never told me I can't spend time with you, Aemond. She has never forbidden me."
You had told him with such disappointment as you understood that the two of you could no longer spend time together and that all those readings together could no longer be possible, neither could High Valyrian lessons despite the fact that neither of you have a dragon yet.
"I know, Y/N."
And he had told you that with such resignation that tears began to form in your eyes.
"Then… we can't be friends anymore?"
And even though Aemond Targaryen at his young age has always been faithful to his mother in everything she told him, the most respectful and obedient, simply the polite and perfect son, seeing your tears and your sad face, at that moment he decided not to obey.
"I'm never going to let that happen. We'll still spend time together, I promise. But we'll have to be very careful."
He had told you to then take you in his arms, hugging you. A hug that you reciprocated instantly, making you feel better knowing that their friendship would continue.
And he keeps his word.
You begin to have secret meetings in the library, the kitchens or in the gardens, both being very careful not to be discovered.
The lessons of High Valyrian continued, also the readings of stories about Old Valyria, the reign of Aegon the Conqueror or the First Men.
Sometimes you would steal bread or cakes from the kitchens, then hide in the library or in the innermost corridors of the Keep where you knew you could not be found.
Everything was perfect. Two innocent children enjoying a friendship and at the same time preparing for their respective duties to the realm.
Until one day, your mother decided to leave with her whole family to Dragonstone.
It was a very hard blow for Aemond and you because you had never been separated before. Your mother had never even considered leaving King's Landing as she was the Heir to the Throne and very much aware that she must remain at Court.
But Alicent Hightower had been more astute and by her behavior managed to dispossess the princess of her own home. And there is no alternative for you and Aemond to exchange letters and keep in touch as much as possible.
Once you arrived at Dragonstone, letters between the two of you were never lacking in that short period of time between your departure from King's Landing and then Aemond's accident at Driftmark.
Aunt Laena Velaryon had died and despite it being an unfortunate event, you were happy to see Aemond again and he too longed to feel close to you again.
However, the Gods are cruel and the accident marked Aemond's life forever, as well as the rivalry between Queen Alicent and Princess Rhaenyra.
And although Lucerys is your brother, Aemond, even in his state of hatred, never resented you for his lost eye, nor the clear rivalry between your mother and his.
On the contrary, the relationship between you was strengthened because you did not want to separate after such a fatal accident that made you cry while you hugged him tightly, thinking that maybe you could have lost him.
So the letters continued, some exchanges of gifts as well and even some secret visits that you allowed yourselves to have on the backs of your dragons to meet in a midpoint.
Or rather on a small island in Blackwater Bay.
Aemond had managed to claim Vhagar, the largest dragon in all the world and the one that once had Visenya Targaryen as a rider, while you claimed Silverwing, the dragon of the good queen Alyssane Targaryen.
Until King Viserys' health began to deteriorate in a serious and worrisome way, so your mother decided to return for an indefinite time to the Red Keep.
And the moment you and Aemond were reunited, that bond between the two of you only grew stronger, so everything formed the word courtship and it was no secret to your families.
It was no secret despite the clear rivalry between the Targaryens and the Hightowers and even more so with Alicent Hightower against the clear affection between his son and Y/N Velaryon.
But everyone knew that you are not a true Velaryon.
A bastard.
That's what you are in the eyes of the Hightower. And no matter that your hair was platinum like the Targaryen's, you were not the daughter of Laenor Velaryon, but probably of Daemon Targaryen.
Queen Alicent knows the depravity of Princess Rhaenyra and there was no other explanation for it, considering also that your brothers are bastards, but of Harwin Strong.
And Queen Alicent felt that spite and hatred for Princess Rhaenyra being so brazen and giving birth to children not legitimate. And the same thoughts she shared with her father, her children and Larys Strong.
However, Aemond didn't want to hear anything she told him about you.
He understood that his mother was angry with his half-sister, but that didn't mean she would have to turn him against you as well for something they had nothing to do with.
Bastard or not… you were always a good person to him. And all Aemond wanted, as well as you too, was to be together. It didn't matter that your brother was the boy who took his eye, that was a separate point for him.
And when you were ten and eight while Aemond was ten and nine, the talks and planning for a marriage began.
Marriage that was not approved by Alicent and Otto Hightower, but Aemond didn't care. He had already let too much time pass without making a move.
And that was dangerous considering that you are a princess of the realm and many lords had already asked for your hand. And because of your age, you had to make a decision now.
But you had already chosen him, in fact since you were a little girl. And now he had already done something about it by asking for your hand.
And finally you could both call each other husband and wife, what you always wanted.
Your father, Daemon, didn't agree to the marriage, Jace didn't either. But your mother took your wishes into consideration and spoke to your grandsire, King Viserys, who approved and gave his blessing for a marriage between his son Aemond and his granddaughter Y/N.
At this, Queen Alicent could do nothing, much less Otto Hightower despite their replies and clear displeasure.
And when your mother gave you the news, it made you very happy to know that finally Aemond could call you his and you could call him yours.
"But are you completely sure about this, my love?"
Your mother asks you, looking at you with eyes of love and understanding, holding your hand. To which you only nod with a small smile on your lips.
"Yes."
She smiles too, stroking the back of your hand with her thumb. Then she lets out a long breath and nods as she lowers her gaze for a moment, which catches your attention.
"You agree, mother?"
She again looks at you with a slightly bewildered look.
"It doesn't matter what I think, sweet girl. What matters is that you really are sure that he is the man you want to spend the rest of your life with."
"I know but your opinion matters to me."
Again Rhaenyra's sweet smile returns to her lips, watching you adoringly for a few moments to again let out a small breath.
"Well… I saw that coming, in a way," she smiles at you, "And I think we all do, actually."
"So you don't feel uncomfortable?"
"No," she denies absurdly, "I remind you that I did exactly as you wish, my love."
"It doesn't hurt to ask you and want to know how you really feel, mother."
Your mother is silent for a few seconds, thinking about your words and thinking about her own next.
"Well… if we go back in time, certainly your grandsire must have felt uncomfortable and… weird about the idea of his brother and his only daughter at the time together," she says sympathetically, "Something I never understood until now that I get to be in the same position as him. But that's our family and I couldn't oppose the idea of what you wish."
She assures you.
"Ever since you and Aemond started being inseparable as children, I knew it would turn out like this. And I knew that the thought of you both being meant to burn together could not be inevitable. And I understand that perfectly."
You nod slowly, listening and understanding his words, thinking.
"But father doesn't think the same," you say with some disappointment, "Neither do my brothers. They are upset with this and with me, I know."
"My love, you don't worry about them," your mother tells you immediately, "Your father will eventually understand, he can't be such a hypocrite, can he? And your brothers… they don't see that this will probably put an end to the rivalry between the two families, despite of happened in Driftmark. I don't expect Aemond to forgive Luke either."
She says and a wave of peace begins to envelop you.
"But there's always a chance and hope," she assures you, "So this is good, very good. Otherwise, Aemond would not have asked for your hand and I would not have spoken to the King to give his blessing."
That time your mother's words could not have comforted you more, making you feel genuinely happy and no longer feeling worried about the people around you because of your marriage to Aemond.
And that time you had also gone in search of Aemond after leaving your mother's chamber, finding him in the library, feeling relieved and happy.
"I spoke to my mother," you tell him, intertwining your fingers with his, "She said to be sure to set a date for the wedding with the king and she will tell us as soon as they come to an agreement."
Aemond watches you with a barely visible half-smile, all his gaze soft and watching you intently, with fondness and longing, noticing how you can't help but be excited about the wedding.
"And do you have any preferences for the wedding you'd like to share with me?"
He asks you softly, completely catching your attention, smiling at him.
"Actually, I should be asking you that question," you take a seat next to him, not letting go of his hand.
"I was the one who insisted on a traditional wedding," he reminds you with an obvious look, "You know I would prefer the Valyrian wedding, less people, few witnesses and everything just like the tradition of our house."
"The traditional wedding thing you asked for taking your mother's wish into consideration. She doesn't approve of this, so that's the only way to keep her less angry," you also remind him, "Still after our wedding at the Septon, we can fly to Dragonstone and have the Valyrian wedding we want. We can even stay there, just you and me."
Aemond smiles, bringing your hand to his lips, leaving chaste, soft kisses on the back of yours, understanding perfectly what you are implying, just what he desires as well.
"No celebration feast, then?" he peers over your hand.
"You want a feast?"
"It doesn't matter what I want, Y/N. All I want is to marry you and unite our blood, that's all that matters to me."
You smile softly, moving a little closer towards him.
"I know, nothing is more important to me too," you tell him softly, "but don't be so insensitive about the preparations, Aemond," you tell him amused.
He rolls his eye, still smiling and still not letting go of your hand for wanting to keep feeling your touch.
"Well, then tell me what's concerning you."
"They are not concerns, I just want to know your opinion and take into consideration some wishes you want to make."
"And what are those?"
"Well… your opinion would help me to know about what colors of the dress I should wear."
Aemond stops his caresses on your hand and watches you with a thin line on his lips and really expressionless for a few seconds without saying anything.
"I know perfectly well that this is about a concern of yours, Y/N," he finally tells you afterwards.
"Well, yes, it is a concern," you reluctantly confess.
"The colors of a dress?"
"Well, what am I supposed to do? Wear green or red?"
"My love, the dress will be yours, not mine. Besides, I know you don't like green."
"Yes but that color is yours."
"No, it's not mine, green is my mother's color," he reminds you, "I may wear it sometimes, but we are both more Targaryen than anything. So if you must choose colors, let them be red and black, just the same colors I will wear."
At that moment in front of him you don't show it, but you feel really relieved to hear his words, the dress being an issue that really had you worried sick.
So you get up, let out a long breath and sit on his lap, him instantly accepting you in his arms, while you drop your head on his chest in a defeated motion.
"What would I do without you," you murmur.
Aemond lets out a small laugh.
"'Rather what would I do without you, Issa jorrāelagon."
You let out a long breath, closing your eyes, taking comfort in the fact that you are in the arms of Aemond, the man you love.
"You're right," you murmur, "All I want is to call a Septon and have him marry us right now with no preparations and no other planning. I was going crazy over a dress and it's only the beginning."
"Don't worry, my love," he assures you softly, "We will plan the whole wedding together, without any third opinions and wishes. And in the end, it will all have been worth it. We'll finally be married, what we've always wanted."
You smile softly, lifting your face a little towards him to watch him, to which he also watches you, seeing your face light up, full of illusion and excitement.
"I still can't believe it."
"You know there's no turning back now, don't you? Once I see you at the Septon, you're already bound to me forever."
"Just what I've always wanted. Unless you don't want to."
"Of course I want to, I'm just warning you," he tells you with a smile, "And I also remind you that the blood of the dragon runs thick."
"We are lucky we share the same blood, my love."
Unable to help yourself any longer, Aemond's lips just above you being an invitation you complacently want to heed, you place your hands on his cheeks and begin to caress your lips with his, sharing a soft, affection-filled kiss that he reciprocates, holding you by your waist.
And even though you have shared countless kisses before, this one is undoubtedly different, because very soon he will be yours and you will be his, finally.
"Avy jorrāelan," you murmur against his lips.
"Avy jorrāelan, Issa gevie ābrazȳrys."
You let out a small laugh at his lips, pulling away from him a little.
"I'm not your wife yet."
"And your point is?"
You laugh again, stroking his long hair, watching his handsome face, stroking his scar as well, watching him with desire and adoration, all of him being what you want.
"Yet you will be soon."
And again he pulls you close in a needy kiss which you reciprocate instantly, really not looking forward to the big day anymore, wanting, no, rather needing to call him your husband as soon as possible.
And finally you can tell when the big day will be you are with Aemond in the gardens, both of you taking a walk before he goes to take his daily sword training and you get the seamstress to plan your dress, when your mother appears and approaches you both.
She has a small smile on her face, so you can tell this is good news.
"I spoke with the King a few moments ago. The Maester's are taking very good care of him and we have finally agreed on a date for the wedding."
"I hope it is soon," Aemond says to your surprise, listening and watching your mother carefully, with a serious gaze, "Though I would not be surprised if my father in his state, has suggested the end of the year."
"No, it's not like that," she tells him almost in the same condescending tone, "I let him know what you are expecting and the date has been dictated for before the end of spring, on another moon."
You hold back your huge smile and excitement, holding Aemond's hand a little tightly in a second out of excitement, that just sounding perfect, just what you wished for.
And even though you know Aemond must also feel the same happiness, he doesn't show it in front of your mother, holding back.
"Does my mother know?" he asks your mother in a softer tone.
Rhaenyra denies with a serious but restrained look of sadness and disappointment.
"No," she clears her throat, lowering her gaze for a moment, "I thought you would want to tell her," she confesses to him, "I never find the opportunity to talk to her," she purses her lips, "She won't let me."
Aemond at your side just nods in her direction, understanding. He also understands that this behavior on his mother's part towards his half-sister has always been there since she returned to the Keep.
And he doesn't think that will change, even after the wedding, but he appreciates Rhaenyra's efforts to try to talk to her and not leave her out of his wedding, despite her insensitivity at Driftmark.
It doesn't mean he'll be nice and friendly to her, it's just that little appreciation.
Then slowly Aemond turns to you and leaves a soft kiss on your forehead, locking you in his arms for a moment, wanting to feel you close.
You smile and hug him back, turning your face to look at your mother with a small more than happy smile on your lips, your mother also smiling in your direction, honestly feeling happy for the both of you.
News of the date begins to spread among the families and soon after throughout the Court as well, with the wedding of Prince Aemond Targaryen and Princess Y/N Velaryon being the most anticipated of the year.
It was still something Otto and Alicent Hightower didn't want, neither did Daemon Targaryen, but the King had already given his blessing and he himself wanted the news to spread throughout Westeros, wanting a truly unforgettable wedding.
Until a few days after your mother let you both know the wedding date, you unexpectedly began to see Aemond less frequently.
Usually the two of you every day go for a walk in the garden or meet in the library. And if you don't have time during the day, at night he sneaks into your chamber or you sneak into his through the secret passages.
However, none of that also happened to make up for lost time.
You would see him a few moments at the training yard with Criston Cole and a few other knights, but that was about it. And when you looked for him in the library, it looked like he wasn't going to spend any more time there.
And just when you decided to sneak through the secret passages to go to his chambers, you stopped and thought to yourself that maybe he's nervous and needs time to think about the wedding.
The wedding of the two of you is something you were longing for since you understood the meaning of a union that now that it's finally going to happen…probably has him very anxious and needs space.
Until the days go by and you start to feel that something is wrong, as you realize that he is avoiding you, something he has never done before.
You tried to talk to him but Criston Cole would let you know that he was having a meeting with his grandsire or was in the company of the queen. He would also tell you that the prince was out for a ride on his dragon.
You asked him to send him a message from you when he saw him, but it seemed that those messages never reached his ears or if they did, he ignored you.
And when you went to look for him at the training yard, you were told that the prince had skipped his training or had already trained very early in the morning, leaving you confused and not understanding anything.
You were completely disconcerted that the two of you suddenly stopped seeing each other and spending time together, so without thinking about it, one night you took the secret passage and slipped into the darkness with a candle in your hand and headed to Aemond's chambers.
But as you try to push his secret door, confusion overcomes you and your pulse stops for a moment when it won't open, being blocked by something from the other side.
You think about shouting his name, but instantly you know it's a very bad idea as you can't risk the secrecy of the passageways out of desperation.
But more and more disappointment and worry fill you, not understanding what is happening and thinking that it must be something bad.
At this, you show your concern to your mother, who continues to attend to matters at Court, keeping an eye on the King's health and helping you with the preparations for the wedding.
"Sure it's nothing, sweet girl. Men act in ways we don't understand, just as we act in ways they don't understand us. Perhaps he is preparing to be a good husband to you and both of you to do your duty for the realm.
"But it seems so strange to me," you say worried, "He doesn't talk to me, I practically don't see him and he even seems to avoid me."
"Have you tried to talk to him yet?"
"Yes, yes, all the time," you reply in an instant, "He even said he would help me get everything ready for the wedding but… I never see him."
"Y/N—
"I just don't understand, mother. We used to spend time together and now that we're finally getting married, he's acting weird."
"Sweet girl—
"Or is it that he doesn't want to marry me anymore?"
You interrupt him with a broken voice and utter disappointment and sadness in your eyes, realization starting to creep into your mind, truly not understanding anything.
"My love, you shouldn't go to extremes," your mother tells you in an instant, not wanting you to get upset and start thinking the worst, "He's been longing for this wedding as much as you have. He's probably just nervous and needs some time."
You look at your beautiful mother not so sure.
"Are you sure?" you ask her in a breathy whisper.
"Yes, my love, very sure."
She quickly moves towards you to lock you in her arms and comfort you, telling you that everything will be all right and that what you want so much , will finally happen.
But if only that had been it.
Not long after talking to your mother, once you head to your mother's chambers after leaving the chambers of your sweet Aunt Helaena with whom you were discussing some lovely ideas for the wedding, a guard intercepts you in the middle of the hallway, stopping you.
"Prince Aemond requires your presence in the Council Chamber, Princess. Immediately."
Such words could not have made you feel happier and relieved, finally ending this torture, so you quickly make your way to the Council Chamber, in an instant thinking about why Aemond has asked to see you there.
But honestly you don't care, all you want is to finally see him and talk to him.
And in an instant you already find yourself walking through the doors of the Council Chamber, happy to see Aemond's figure finally, standing with his back to you from the other side of the table, waiting for you.
But you must have thought something was wrong when he didn't even turn to look at you when he heard the sound of the doors opening and your footsteps approaching.
"My love, I'm so relieved to finally see you," you say with a smile, approaching him happily, "I was so worried, you don't know how much I wanted to see you and talk to you. I have so much to tell you, I even came to think that….
"I won't marry you."
Then your whole world stops, just like your feet, stopping abruptly at his words, your smile fading in a second and watching him now in shock.
The room goes completely silent, with no one else present, just the two of you, not even a guard present at his request for discretion… for now.
"I have spoken to my father… I have already cancelled all preparations, the Septon and my family have also been made aware."
And at his words, you feel like each one of them is a knife straight to your heart, tearing it from the inside, feeling an intent, sharp pain in your chest.
You look at him with your lips parted, your gaze completely bewildered and your eyes starting to fill with tears.
You are completely paralyzed, unable to move despite feeling yourself start to tremble, seeing him not even look back at you, telling you all this without any emotion, as if it meant nothing.
"Your family must also be being notified right now, the whole Court will know soon too."
"But…
You try to say with a thread of a voice, but he again speaks, still turning his back to you and with no emotion in his voice, no emotion in his posture either, leaving you to see a man you don't know completely.
"That's all. You can leave now."
Disbelief is completely reflected in your gaze, truly not understanding anything, with tears starting to involuntarily flow out of your eyes at his coldness and insensitivity.
Because he's already done everything… without you having the slightest idea.
"Are you serious?"
You manage to say, your voice completely broken and in a whisper, needing to sit up or lean against something, feeling your strength go.
"Doesn't it sound like I'm serious?"
"Aemond—
"I told you that's all, you can leave now," he repeats you with the same seriousness and coldness, as if you were nobody to him.
Then the first sob escapes your lips, trying to control yourself, but you cannot.
You continue to stand there, watching him with all the sadness in the world, also with all the confusion, really not understanding anything, needing an explanation, wanting to know why, what you have done wrong, what has happened, why he so suddenly changed his mind.
Everything was all right, everything seemed right, that you just don't understand.
"I-I don't… I don't understand anything—
"If you don't leave Y/N, I'll leave," he warns you, without even looking you in the eye for a second.
"But you… I-I… I thought—
He won't let you talk, he just doesn't want to listen to you and just like he said, that's what he does. He lets out a frustrated sigh and heads out of the Council Chamber, leaving you behind, heartbroken and not knowing why.
"Aemond," you call out to him between sobs, pleading.
Not knowing where you have drawn strength from, you move towards him once he is within reach, grabbing his arm, wanting to stop him and make him explain, but as soon as you reach him, he quickly pushes you away in a sharp, tactless movement, treating you, again, as if you were nobody.
"Don't."
He warns you in a threatening and cold tone, resuming his way to the doors in a more hurried pace, not even looking back.
His demeanor and coldness leave you completely shocked and static, never in a million years expecting such behavior from him towards you.
And once he leaves the Council Chamber, you feel your heart completely broken and your mind a mess of emotions, wanting to believe that this is not real, starting to cry and sob loudly.
A complete mess, Aemond leaves you there without explanation and without caring at all about your feelings, all being said and done.
Not long after, your mother and father rush into the Council Chamber, looking for you, finding you still a mess and you quickly asking them for explanations, explanations they had no idea about either.
And all that time, you kept asking yourself why, why he had done this to you if he was supposed to love you and want to marry you. But nobody understood anything.
Only he knew why he had done it.
Tumblr media
Weeks have passed since the announcement of the cancelled betrothal between prince Aemond and princess Y/N.
You being the protagonist of the topic to talk about, even so the men and women of the Court were not at all dissimulated and kept feeding the news more and more with each passing day.
Different rumors ran about the possible cause that caused the wedding to be canceled, rumors that you did not want to hear and for which you ended up locking yourself in your chamber, not wanting to see anyone.
You barely slept and barely ate, watching the days pass by through your windows slowly, with huge bags under your eyes and dismissing your maids whenever they wanted to assist you.
You hadn't seen him since that conversation either.
You didn't hear from anyone except your family who were in charge of making you react by going into your chamber to take a bath and eat something, your mother extremely worried about you and your father specifically having someone in mind for wanting to murder upon seeing your state.
Everyone was still as confused as you were, even your mother asked Queen Alicent for an explanation, but to no avail. She even tried to talk to Aemond, but he wouldn't let her, saying that everything was already done.
It was so much the humiliation that not even your mother would force you to leave your chamber, no matter how much she wanted to get you out of your four walls, Daemon feeling extremely upset and indignant.
Your brothers never said anything to you, but they were extremely worried about you too, as were your sisters Baela and Rhaena.
Even your grandmother Rhaenys sent her concerns from Driftmark, but no one had any explanations for anyone.
And you too, despite everything, still wanted an explanation from him. You wanted to understand, you wanted to know why… because you needed to, you needed to know.
But you never tried to talk to him again. How could you if he had left you totally devastated with no justification?
And you knew that if you tried, Aemond wouldn't be willing to talk to you. He found it easier to forget and move on, as if nothing had happened, without caring, just what he is doing now.
Until one day the king requested a dinner with every member of his family, including you, without any exception, wanting to have a dinner with everyone together, wanting the waters to calm down after so much tension.
Your mother assured you that your grandsire was no longer blinded by the milk of poppy, that he made sure to drink less of it now, and yet you thought that your grandsire still conscious, made the worst decisions.
You could no longer continue to take refuge in your chambers, so with no alternative, your maids prepare you for dinner, dressing you and making you a hairstyle as usual, nothing new and nothing missing.
"You can do this, my sweet girl."
Your loving mother says to you, holding your face with both her hands.
"We will be with you at all times. I will be with you always by your side," she assures you, "You just ignore him, ignore them all, I will do the rest. Let's just please your grandsire on this, all right?"
Unable to help yourself, you hug your mother tightly and in one needy movement, to which she hugs you back with all that love and all that comfort you so desperately need, understanding you completely.
You try not to cry, because you've cried too much already and you're tired of it, but now you can't help it, needing your perfect mother for strength.
"Thank you," you murmur into her chest.
"I love you, my love. I would do anything for you."
You smile with happiness and sadness at the same time, with pain, starting to cry, trying not to make noise.
"I love you too."
She then tells you that you can stay a moment longer in her chambers before leaving to give you time, but what you don't want is to draw attention to yourself, so you prefer to arrive before anyone else in the dining room.
Then your whole family takes their respective seats, your father instantly giving you the seat next to your mother so that you are not sitting across from him, everyone knowing perfectly well which is his usual seat.
Then the doors open again and it's them, all the green ones.
You lower your gaze and pretend not to care about anything as he walks through the doors, following Aegon, just being in the same room as him making you feel something you don't know exactly what it is but you don't like it, feeling uncomfortable as well.
He doesn't look a single second in your direction either, but instantly being the center of attention of your father, who is the one who takes a seat in front of him, with Rhaena and Luke.
Shortly after, the King makes his entrance, everyone rising from their seats to greet him.
And more shortly after, you want to say that time fortunately passes quickly but unfortunately it doesn't, so you just suffer in silence, with your mother holding your hand from time to time, wanting to give you all her possible support in this.
The servants serve the food and wine, that fortunately distracting you, also the music your grandsire orders to play, this being a bit more bearable.
But all you want to do is get out of this room and never be in the company of all the Hightowers ever again.
You know that sweet Helaena is not to blame for anything, but she is part of them too by being Aegon's wife and already having three children with him.
And that couldn't make you sadder… sweet Helaena being wife to a man who doesn't deserve her.
Your father offers you his hand in a moment as Rhaena and Luke rise from their seats and head to the center to dance, also Jace invites Helaena.
Your father shows you his support even though he had said from the beginning that your betrothal to Aemond was a bad idea. But you are also his sweet little girl and he lets you know that he will always be there for you.
When the moment is interrupted by Otto Hightower, wanting to make an announcement, stopping the music and drawing the attention of everyone in the room.
You exchange a glance with your father, you don't even look in Otto's direction when everyone else does, because he is so close to his grandsire.
"Now that we're all together, I'm very pleased to let you know the great news."
Otto Hightower says and you raise your wine glass to your lips, not really caring.
"My grandson Prince Daeron who is in Oldtown, will soon return to the capital to marry Cerelle Lannister, daughter of our Naval advisor, Jason Lannister," he announces proudly.
Everything is silent for a few seconds, you still not giving importance to anything or anyone, still thinking about the great news, definitely.
You didn't even remember Daeron, he's been so long away from King's Landing that it's impossible to remember him. And before anyone says anything, just to corroborate what Otto is saying, he again speaks up.
"It is also my pleasure to inform you that my grandson Aemond…
Your heart stops for a second, as well as that definitely catches everyone's attention, everyone listening attentively and you too, unconsciously.
"He has also been betrothed to one of Lord Borros Baratheon's four daughters, the lady Floris Baratheon," he says and continues, "These two marriages clearly being more than excellent benefits to the house of the dragon and so securing our bloods, both the common and the blood of old Valyria."
At that moment you did not notice the exchange of glances from your brothers and sisters, also the mocking smile that your father let out when he heard the man's words, as well as the serious look on your mother's face when she heard everything.
You just focused on yourself, pretending none of it mattered to you, feigning indifference, when your mind could only repeat one thing at all times:
"My grandson Aemond has also been betrothed to one of Lord Borros Baratheon's four daughters, the Lady Floris Baratheon."
You want to cry. And a lot.
However, it was only more humiliation than necessary and you had to control yourself, needing this dinner to be over as soon as possible.
Again absolute silence is in the huge room, you couldn't care less.
When Alicent is the first to congratulate her son, as well as your grandsire in a weak and hoarse voice, then your mother also offers the coldest congratulations she has ever given, simply to keep up appearances.
And you can only think: was this necessary?
How mean Otto Hightower had to be and so did Alicent to want to humiliate you further by announcing such a thing, to you and your entire family for that matter. It just wasn't necessary.
Until finally the dinner is over and everyone can leave once the king takes his leave and retires to his chambers first.
Completely controlling your tears, you enter your room with your father more than furious, followed by your mother and your brothers and sisters.
"What the fuck was that!?" he inquires to your mother.
"My love—
"Do you really think I'm just going to stand here and do nothing!?"
"Oh truly? And what are you going to do?" asks your mother too, seriously, "Cut off the heads of Aemond and Otto Hightower?"
"They have humiliated us, Rhaenyra!" he exclaims to her in annoyance, "they can talk and humiliate me all they want, but they will not humiliate you or my family!"
"Father—
Baela tries to talk to him, but he won't let her.
"We're going to go talk to Viserys this instant and Y/N's wedding to that fucking one-eyed is going to happen."
"Are you serious?" your mother inquires again, "Husband, you were the first to oppose the marriage."
"They have humiliated our daughter, don't you see!" he points out angrily, "Her marriage to Aemond would have given us more power over them if we had him and Vhagar on our side. Now by the time Viserys dies, you're not going to have enough support for your claim," he tells her seriously, "We need Lord Borros on our side as well."
"Daemon, this isn't about the crown, this is about our daughter."
"And that is exactly why I will not let such humiliation pass," he tells her seriously and with a dark look on his face, "He asked for Y/N's hand, he gave you a whole speech to allow him to marry her, now he keeps his word or he marries no one, just like that."
"I want to go home."
You speak in the middle of all the discussion, staring at an unimportant spot in your chamber, tears running down your cheeks, your sad, tired, broken voice calling for everyone's attention.
Your mother and sisters quickly turn to you, concerned about your condition.
"What is it, my love?"
Your mother asks you, running her hands through your hair, watching you intently.
"I want to go home," you repeat, "I want to go to Dragonstone."
Your mother immediately looks at your father, who looks back at her, serious and attentive to you, feeling more upset at seeing you so broken.
"My love, we can't leave," your mother tells you in a soft voice, "We need to take care of your grandsire and stay at Court, as it should be."
"You stay here," you say in an instant, "I will go."
Your mother denies, understanding you, but unable to allow it.
"My love, don't—
"Mother please," you plead, "Please, at least just for a little while, I promise I'll come back," you beg, "But now… I just want to get out of here, please."
Your mother watches you for a few moments without saying anything with her lips parted, again exchanging a glance with Daemon, who nods slightly in her direction.
But Rhaenyra won't let you go just like that. She is your mother, after all.
"You'll be alone, my sweet," she says with some fear, "I can't leave you alone and I won't be at ease with that."
"She won't be," Rhaena says instantly, drawing everyone's attention, "I'll go with her and Luke will too. We'll come back when she's ready."
"No, absolutely not," says your mother resolutely, "I can't have the three of you in Dragonstone alone, no—
"Let them," your father interrupts, "I'd rather Y/N leave this snake pit until everything calms down. I feel better with the idea of Rhaena and Luke accompanying her, so the three of them will take care of each other."
"And we won't necessarily always have to stay at Dragonstone," Rhaena adds, "We can fly to Driftmark and spend a few days keeping our grandmother company too."
Your mother turns your gaze to you, who you completely beg with your gaze to let you do this, to let you go for now.
And of course, you feel completely grateful to Rhaena and your little brother for not letting you go alone. Clearly Jace and Baela are the heirs after your parents and it makes the most sense for them to stay here at Court.
Until finally your mother lets out a long breath, not herself believing she will accept this, being too afraid to let her children go to Dragonstone alone.
Though she knows there is no better safe place for them, even safer than King's Landing.
"All right," she finally says, "But I'll fly with you there and then I'll come back, just to make sure everything will be all right."
You immediately nod, not really caring, since all you want to do is get out of here and not come back.
Again your mother hugs you, transmitting all that comfort and affection you always need from her, really not wanting to leave here. You were so excited to go back to the Keep but you weren't expecting any of this to happen.
And now you just want to go home and come back when you feel better.
Soon enough you find yourself in Dragonpit, with your mother, Luke and Rhaena ready to fly to Dragonstone, with your father, Jace, Baela, Joffrey, little Aegon and little Viserys seeing them off.
All the while shedding tears, lasting more nights without sleep and more days with no appetite for anything, only finding comfort in riding your dragon as your mother was not around.
And as soon as you finish saying goodbye, the sooner you find yourself in the skies and the sooner you arrive at the black castle, your home.
You needed to let many moons pass to cope with your broken heart and such humiliation, also to accept that Aemond never really loved you and that he would soon marry another woman who would not be you.
But Silverwing was always there for you and could feel everything you felt.
Until one day, more moons after your departure from King's Landing, Rhaenyra and Daemon Targaryen return to Dragonstone with their entire family for a short time, promising to return soon.
And shortly after the Heir to the Throne leaves King's Landing, a raven arrives at the Red Keep, announcing the unexpected new news.
The Heir, Princess Rhaenyra returns to King's Landing in less than two moons with her prince consort Prince Daemon and her entire family to celebrate the wedding of Princess Y/N Velaryon to Lord Cregan Stark, Lord of Winterfell.
And that message is spread all over the Red Keep, all over King's Landing and eventually all over Westeros.
2K notes · View notes
dilatorywriting · 1 year
Text
Monster Mayhem: Donkeys & Dragons [PART 2]
Gender Neutral Reader x Malleus Draconia Word Count: 3.1k
Summary: Everything's all fun and games until everyone assumes you're just being a Horny BardTM when you have, in fact, actually been kidnapped by a dragon.
🌶️ Obligatory Warning for Mild Spice
[PART 1] [PART 2] [PART 3] [PART 4] [EPILOGUE]
Tumblr media
“Wow,” Ace whistled, long and low, and you fought a twitch in your jaw.
He and Deuce were certainly beat to shit, but not quite ‘hurled dozens of feet through the air and a roof’ level of shit, so your spell must have cushioned at least a little of the fall. The pair of idiots stood at the entrance of the cavernous room, shifting back and forth on their heels and faces twisted up in varying degrees of horror. 
“I mean, I know there’s a stereotype about bards and whatever,” he continued, aghast. “But, really? Really?”
You grit your teeth. The pointed chin resting atop your head shifted and you felt claws flex at your hips.
‘My friends will probably be coming back here soon to find me,’ you’d entreated, not five-minutes prior.
‘Your friends?’ the dragon had repeated, slow, like the concept of comradery was something completely alien. And then his eyes had narrowed. ‘Ah. They intend to steal you away,’ he’d said with all the indignation of someone who’d clearly forgotten he had literally just proclaimed his intent to the do the exact same thing.
Sparks had shot out from between his teeth, and the already too-sharp black nails tipping his fingers had curled into talons—ashy darkness trailing up his arms like a seeping stain.
‘What? No,’ you’d lied. ‘They would never. I’m sure they’re just curious. Whether I’m still alive or not, I mean.’
‘Oh,’ he’d blinked, that venomous ire seeping from his gaze as if it’d never been there to begin with. ‘I suppose that does make sense.’
So when your loveable idiots had eventually stormed in—swords drawn, banners flying—you schooled your countenance into something as placid as possible. Something that perhaps conveyed ‘I would love for you guys to help me out here, but also I would really like not to see the three of us become tonight’s entrée. So like. Maybe sit this one out.’ But whatever expression you ended up making clearly wasn’t doing what you were aiming for if Ace’s first instinct was to accuse you of Horny Bard Shenanigans.
Or maybe your face wasn’t the problem. Maybe it was just the nearly seven-foot-tall, naked, dragon man draped across your shoulders. Who’s to say.
“This has nothing to do with that,” you snapped, ears burning.
“Do with what?” The newly dubbed Tsunotarou rumbled. He was pressed close enough that you could feel the worlds roll through his chest—annnnd you were going to stop yourself right there and focus very, very, intently on getting through this conversation alive.
“Human things,” you spluttered frantically.
“Ah,” he hummed, his chin shifting from the crown of your head to dip down and instead rest atop the curve of your shoulder. “You’ll have to explain it to me later, then. I do find our cultural differences very intriguing. You humans are so… new age.”
“Explain it to you later…?” Deuce frowned, and you could see the words zipping around behind his eyes to slowly put themselves together into a cohesive thought. He shot ramrod straight and whipped his arm out accusatorily. “You’re staying?!”
“Of course,” you said, with all the enthusiasm of someone with a knife held to their throat. You locked eyes as obviously as you could—hoping he’d get the message. “It’s in everyone’s best interest.”
You could see the pinched look on his face, the heavy weight of discontentment tugging at his brow. There was a war being waged in that man’s head—a battle between what lingering, frail, shreds of rationality and comprehension remained, and the desire to be a good friend and save our bard! Because mama said I should be good to my friends! You stared him down hard, silently begging, pleading, to just let it go. The fingers gripping his axe tightened and you could hear the leather of his gauntlets creak with strain. Tsunotarou hummed, something like amusement coloring the throaty rumble, and it tingled all the way from the tips of your toes to the cheek he was tucked up against. The claws at your side flexed—not deep enough to hurt, but firm enough to know that funny as the notion of a teeny, human, barbarian hurling themselves at a dragon was, it wasn’t going to be a good enough joke to earn said dragon’s mercy.
“Well, duh, you’re staying!” Ace interrupted slickly, sliding in front of Deuce and his burbling rage like a fox finally skulking from its hole. “Look at what a great new friendyou’ve made! You can’t just leave him here all on his lonesome, now can you?”
The low rumble skirting along your back melted into something that was very nearly a purr. Your eyes flickered to your captor’s face—or as much of his face as you could manage to make out, considering he had plastered himself to your side like an overgrown cat. His lips were curled back into that smug, contented, smirk—the tips of his sharp canines just barely peeked out over his bottom lip.
“We’ll come back and check on you, of course,” Ace continued. He waved his hand at the dragon, like they were old chums shooting the shit over a pint of ale in a tavern. “You know how it is. Gotta make sure they’re settling in all right—make sure you’re keeping with your honorable intentions and whatnot. How’s two weeks from now sound?”
“Two weeks?!” you wailed.
Tsunotarou grumbled, clearly also displeased. “I agree. That seems far too soon.”
“Two months?” the ginger countered easily.
“Ace!”
The dragon seemed to consider this new proposal quite thoroughly. You could feel his long lashes flick down against your cheek as his eyes went hooded, heavy—slipping back into his thoughts to ponder upon this newly proffered timeline. After a long, long, moment, he lifted himself from your neck and plonked his chin back down atop the crown of your head.
“That is acceptable.”
Deuce looked entirely unimpressed. You had a feeling you looked like you were about to shit yourself. Ace, naturally, seemed more or less content.
“Well then!” the traitor chirped. “We’ll see you when we see you then, yeah?”
You grit you teeth, but your gaze flicked to your other, kinder, friend and you bit back the slew of heinous insults brewing on your tongue. Deuce still looked more than ready to jump into the fray, consequences be damned. And you were not going to let your terrible, horrible, no-good, rotten luck end all his valiant attempts at redemption when he inevitably attempted to go toe-to-toe with the business end of a dragon.
“…Are you sure you’re gonna be alright here?” Deuce asked, face twisted up in distaste.  
There was a pissy rumble from over your shoulder.
“Do you doubt my abilities as a host?”
“Of course he doesn’t!” Ace cut in, ever the bootlicker. “And besides,” he drawled, elbowing his companion in the ribs. “You know how bards are. I’m sure this is right up their alley.” He wiggled his eyebrows and Deuce went pale—then green. Ace turned on you with a smile that was all vinegar. “Right?”
‘I should not let them be murdered horribly,’ you repeated to yourself past the crimson rage leaking into your vision. ‘I should not let them be horribly murdered—’
“Righteo!” you forced yourself to spit. And if you somehow managed to survive these next two months, you were going to string that red haired traitor up by his pinkies and feed him to the crows that lived outside your window.
Your friends slipped away slowly, hesitantly—Deuce looking like he’d been struck down by a horrid case of food poisoning or something else equally as stomach churning. Once they were gone, Tsunotarou lifted his chin from your head so that he could crane his neck over your shoulder and look at you more directly. Not that he had to try very hard, seeing as he was gigantic, whether on two legs or four.
“What was the small, ugly, one referring to?” he asked curiously. “About your profession?”
Your life flashed before your eyes.
“Bards are known for their hearty curiosity and drive to experience new situations,” you repeated, verbatim, from the little adventurer’s handbook you’d been gifted by Lord Crewel all those years ago.
“Oh,” he hummed, nodding into your hair. “Of course.”
.
.
The first major hurdle cropped up barely two hours later.
“I need to use the bathroom.”
The dragon blinked slowly, as if mentally tallying through a list of human bodily functions to try and figure out just what on earth you were talking about.
“Ah,” he said after a moment. And then he began to melt away—limbs stretching and cracking, and porcelain complexion bubbling up with inky miasma so thick and dark it may as well have been tar. It was both horrifying and awe-inspiring to watch, like some great creature of old emerging from an arcane cocoon. And not two minutes later, a familiar, ebony, dragon was standing before you in all its glory.
He lowered his snout and nosed around your shoulders for a moment, snuffling and searching. And then he pinched your collar between his teeth and hauled you into the air.
You tried not to scream. Really, you did. But humans just weren’t meant for flying, let alone while suspended between the jaws of a beast that could swallow them whole. By the time you landed, you were so wobbly and windswept that you nearly collapsed to the ground then and there, bladder be damned. Tsunotarou warbled something deep in his chest, and you glanced up past the thin veil of icy sweat dripping into your eyes.
He'd placed you into a blown-out enclave that had probably once been a very nice hallway. And in the corner was the remains of what indeed looked like a bathroom. You straightened yourself as much as you could and began hobbling woozily towards what you hoped was a proper, enchanted, toilet and not just some block of stone with a bowl at the bottom.
There was an echoing thud from behind you and you jumped, startled, and turned to see what the ruckus was all about. Tsunotarou had sat his massive head at the entrance. And he continued to sit there. Watching.  
“Uhm,” you mumbled. “Thank you.”
He stared, unmoving. You sighed and squashed your fingers into your temples.
“…We’re going to have to establish some boundaries,” you said. The dragon’s gigantic, neon, eyes closed and opened—like a question. “Boundaries,” you repeated. “Things that we do on our own.”
The beast’s lips flattened into a grumpy line and he grumbled something unintelligible at you, spitting loose sparks from behind his overly long canines.
However, mouthful of razor-sharp teeth in your face or otherwise, everyone had to draw the line between pride and self-preservation somewhere. And having to piss in front of an audience was apparently yours.
You waved your hands in a shoo shoo motion and those amethyst crests flattened irritably atop his skull. He settled in further, the structure of the terrace groaning beneath the weight of his scaly chin. You worried your lower lip between your teeth. It wasn’t exactly like there was a door or anything that you could just, like, shut in his face. And beating him off with a broom or something like a stray cat was out of the question—just out of sheer impossibility. You were going to have to get creative here…
An idea popped into your head and you leaned forward with a charismatic little smile that you’d unleashed on so many traders, and shopkeepers, and unsuspecting bakers that it ought to be considered a weapon in its own right. You’d practiced it in the mirror for weeks.
“I’ll tell you a story,” you offered, and his slitted pupils rounded a bit—intrigued. “That’s what I was before all this, you know. A storyteller.” You had his full interest now, those purple crests rippling behind his horns. “But you have to close your eyes,” you said. “It makes it easier to imagine that way.”
He stared you down curiously for a heartbeat or three, and then Tsunotarou’s gigantic, luminous, eyes slipped shut.  
You sighed and plopped yourself down on the decrepit, stone, toilet.
“Once upon a time,” you began, sweeping your cloak out in front of you to give yourself at least a little bit more dignity. One of those crests twitched at the sound of swirling fabric, but his eyes remained dutifully closed. “There was a bard who made some very terrible life decisions—"
.
.
The next bump in the road came the following afternoon.
“People tend to wear clothes,” you said.
He canted his head at you. “I am not a person.”
Oh for fucks sake.
Tsunotarou was stretched out along one of the many, grand, banisters lining what you assumed had once been a ballroom—lounging in the dim light like a lizard sunning itself on a rock. Apparently, before your arrival, he’d very rarely, if ever, shed his wings and scales for this more compact form. And he seemed to be thoroughly enjoying spreading himself out across all the new surfaces that the change in size allowed him. Part of you would have thought it was a bit endearing—seeing this eldritch monster merrily falling into the ‘if I fits, I sits’ way of life. The other part was sick of nearly collapsing in cardiac arrest every time you caught sight of his very naked self reclining across some new piece of furniture.
“Yes,” you intoned, deadpan. “But you look like one.”
He blinked slowly, as if putting together a thought. “I see. The dissonance of observing a vestige of humanity which does not actually fit the mold of a human must be disconcerting to you.” He rested a knuckle lightly against his chin as he pondered. “In the same way I may feel uncomfortable if you took on the form a dragon with no teeth or tail.”
“Sure. Whatever,” you bemoaned. “Just. Pants? Please?”
He observed you quietly for a moment, amusement dancing across his features. And then he grinned, putting the pointed tips of those impressive canines of his on full display.
“Well I suppose if you’re going to ask so sweetly.”
He sat up with a stretch that was outright spitting in the face of your plea for modesty, and then spread his hands. His black-tipped fingers twisted gracefully, artfully, and the cavernous room filled with the scent of packed earth and ozone. Soft puffs of emerald light glided along his arms, and in their wake sprouted tendrils of sheer, silken, sleeves. Those dancing lights traveled merrily from his shoulders to his hips, and then back again—spinning magic into fabric like little, ghostly, seamstresses as they went.
The soft glow faded and the silk settled around him with all the delicacy of a cloud. It was stunning, certainly. A true work of beauty. With billowing sleeves that cinched neatly at his wrists, and swept into an open window across his front. The fabric wrapped itself snuggly at his waist and draped low enough to offer at least what should have been the bare minimum of modesty. It pooled across his shoulders, splaying out into a split cape that looked eerily similar to the wings he dawned in his other, scalier, form.
But this lovely new ensemble—as gloriously shiny and magical as it was—was still nearly fucking transparent. And yeah, the shadows curling along the spiraling silk did a decent enough job at obscuring what ought to be obscured. But at the same time, somehow this impression of cloth, of loose fabric that dipped below his collar bones and hung uneven and open across his pale chest, was worse than the outright fucking nudity. Scandalous. Like walking in on a seduction scene in a trashy novel.
“…maybe you should just do whatever makes you comfortable,” you managed to cough out, gaze slipping downwards of its own accord. And then more down. You gulped. “D-Don’t feel the need to change yourself on my account.”
He stared grumpily at his swanky new outfit. And then back at you. His lips pursed into a pout.
“You don’t find it pleasing.”
Your eyes rolled up to stare miserably, tormentedly, at the ceiling, and you began reciting every religious verse you could think of. Thou shall not steal or covet. In the name of the Mother, the Crone, and the Hallowed Throne. Head, shoulders, knees, and toes. Aye, Macarena—
“It looks perfectly nice. I just think that you have as much of a right to be happy in your skin as I do,” you reiterated. “I—I mean, you’re already keeping yourself human more often than not just so we can talk.” Which was true enough, but also mostly an attempt to make it seem like your concern was genuinely aimed at him and not your steadily rising blood pressure.
“…you’re incredibly strange,” he grumbled after a moment, his brow tugging low on his forehead. More pouting. “And impossibly frustrating to read.”
The heat radiating off your face like a fucking active volcano felt ‘possible’ enough to you, but what did you know.
“That’s why you’re keeping me around,” you reminded him.
Ten minutes later, he was sprawled out with his head in your lap, the ridges of his horns bumping your hips and inky black hair spilling over your thighs. Naked as a jaybird.
“Tell me another story,” he hummed, eyes slipping closed.
“Sure,” you agreed, gaze once again firmly locked on the hundreds of cracks in the ceiling. You’d probably have them all memorized by this evening, or at the very least have managed to count them all up a dozen times over.
You were halfway through some yarn about armies made of playing cards and worlds beyond looking glasses when Tsunotarou sighed, heavy and bone deep. Content. And then he turned to bury his cheek into the rough fabric of your traveler’s pants with a rumbling drawl that was not unlike a purr. His nose pressed itself into the inseam of your thigh and your brain fuzzed out like you’d been shot pointblank with a Wand of Lightning Bolts.
“Child of Man?” he huffed after a moment—one, neon, eye flicking open to glare up at you grumpily. “What happened then? To the cat that smiled too wide and the man with the mad hats?”
“R-Right,” you squawked. “Uhm—so as I was saying—”
You stared back at all those cracks and started counting again from zero.
3K notes · View notes
emsartwork · 4 months
Text
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
ALL OF DAPHNE'S TRANSFORMATIONS. INCLUDING UPDATED NYMPHIX.
Previously Fairy of the Dragon Flame now Fairy of Embers. She doesn't have any transformations others than these because she was fast tracked into the nymphix path, and unlike the winx the majority of fairies don't pursue additional transformations past enchantix. (i think Daphne would be interested in Dreamix tho, so maybe I'll draw that eventually.
Her major color shifted after dying and being revived, which is shown in her winx and enchantix.
other lore and design notes below!
I changed her major color from orange/yellow to more of a teal/green because. she just doesn't look good in yellow I'm sorry I really tried but it wasn't working. Also little updates to her hair color, nothing huge tho. Daphne's primary motifs are a branching "Y" shape and a double oval/tear drop. She's a pants when possible girlie and a one set winger(yes her nymphix looks like it have multiple wings but they all merge into one stem on each side) . Her scars from her Sirenix being ripped out of her caused her winx/enchantix to change a little to cover them(mostly seen in the arms) due to insecurity. Her Dryadix/nymphix flower is a daffodil! because pun Daph-Daff, and Daffodils symbolize rebirth and new beginnings (also creativity, energy, resilience, forgiveness and vitality). Her Harpix wings aren't super specificly patterned, but she has darting wings common in small song and seed birds (robins, finches, brown birds etc.) the coloring is referential of a Shrike (also called a Butcher Bird), because Daphne was. incredibly dangerous and if she had sided with the ancestral probably would have been given a moniker similar to Butcher of Domino or Daphne the Slaughterer. (some people do call her these but its mostly among people who dislike Domino/The Royal Family.)
Lore! Daphne doesn't have a great sense of self, she was planned as a necessary successor to Marion/the dragon flame in a period as the ancestral witches were escalating their attacks and search for the dragon flame. Bloom was a back up baby in case both Daphne and Marion got dead and basically worked as intended haha. Daphne was also much more publicly involved in the kingdom than many of the other royals in winx (Stella, Aisha, Krystal and even Galatea to an extent all had rather sheltered upbringings) in a way Daphne is much more like Sky and Thoren in the since that none of them really had the space to develop their own personality outside of their familial duty.
Daphne's 1st winx and enchantixes are as direct a copy of her mom's Enchantix as you can get with transformations, right down to the more greenish tint of her major color. Growing up Marion used her fairy form liberally, so that, combined with being the next Dragon Flame holder left a deep impact on Daphne's subconscious. Daphne was also heavily influenced by Faragonda during her Alfea and Nymphix Quest years, but since she was older this isn't as deep an influence. After being revived, Daphne's years of defining herself as her connection to Bloom causes her major color to shift more blue in response to her trauma. Daphne is slowly starting to develop a sense of self outside of her titles/connections but it's unlikely her major color will shift again unless she has another major trauma.
(for the record the Winx do have trauma over the timeline I have laid out that would potentially cause their major colors to shift but I didn't do that for a couple reasons 1, their colors are iconic and make them easily recognizable as characters; 2, I'm a tired bitch. )
343 notes · View notes
ne-nene-ne · 1 year
Text
Tumblr media
♡ How to gain the dragon's affection ♡
Tumblr media
-> things you can do to make this handsome fae weak in the knees
malleus x reader (fluff!)
Tumblr media
Wear or carry the things he's gifted you!
Whether it's a necklace, bracelet, or even a mini gargoyle statue, have it on you! Malleus will beam with pride when he sees it on your person. I feel like he's a bit of a possessive person, so he'd love seeing you dressed in the things that he, himself has chosen and gifted you.
Indulge him in his passion for exploring ruins and his love for gargoyles!
If you show even the tiniest bit of interest in gargoyles or ruin exploring, you will see Malleus' eyes light up immediately and he will begin talking about it for hours. Please allow him to do so. Not many share his passion or are interested in these types of things (if at all), please listen to him ramble on. Heck, join the Gargoyle Studies Club! Give this dude some company because he's pretty much the only member there. 😭 And look, he's aware that not everyone is interested in the same things he is, but if you at least put in the effort to listen and try to understand, he'd be a happy fae
Include him in your activities!
We already know how much of a complex he has towards being invited/uninvited, so if you constantly make it a point to include him in whatever you're doing, he will feel loved. I don't think he'd be picky about what kind of activity you'd be doing. He'd be open-minded to whatever it is. In fact, he'd try to find possible ways to make it easier on you if it's a difficult task. If it's an artsy/creative activity, like painting, there's a chance he'll either be pretty good at it at first try, or he'll end up making a bit of a mess. I also don't think he'd mind much of this either, even if he did end up looking silly. He would laugh it off heartily and probably be like, "How interesting...!" He's curious about your ways and is very much willing to learn. His adoration for you will just increase if you try to teach him
Help him raise his tamagotchi!
He absolutely loves his Roaring Drago and so if you offer to help him "raise" it or offer to watch over it whenever he's busy, he'll fall more in love with you. Not only will he feel closer to you as you both nurture the little creature, he might even begin to see a future with you and your own little ones (if you ever had that in mind) and oh, how he knows how much he'd love that life dearly if it was spent with you.
Share that full-sized cake with him!
This one is oddly specific but as seen in his profile, Malleus dislikes full-sized cakes because he tried eating one entirely by himself 😅 (ofc he wouldn't feel great afterwards). You might be met with a resistant attitude or sour face from him (out of instinct) when you bring out that whole cake, but show him that it isn't as bad as he thinks when he shares it with someone. Maybe he'll like it! And if he doesn't, well then you guys can smear the leftovers on each other's faces and have a bit of fun!
This poor boy has just been left out on a lot. Make him feel welcomed, wanted, and loved and he will adore you forever 🥺❤️
Tumblr media
a/n: not really proofread tbh but it was a fun one! I might just turn this into a series and do the same for other twst charas. I'm thinking of Azul or Leona next, hmm
And OKAY so I originally posted this on @lyneira (my brand new writing blog) but my posts on there aren't showing up in the tags yet so I guess I'll still be posting some of my writing here until tumblr allows them to be seen 😭 somebody pls interact with my new blog so that tumblr doesn't think I'm a bot 😔
Tumblr media
3K notes · View notes
yantako · 8 months
Note
Hello! Can i request yandere Malleus , Floyd and Kalim with an s/o who cant feel fear? (Its not that they are brave or anything its a real problem in their brain that they of course cannot fix)
Hi there! Thank you so much for the request!
I have definitely heard of this brain disorder before and honestly, it is really scary to think about it. Not sure if I'm doing it justice though, please forgive me if it doesn't sound like the condition! ><
Anyway, without further ado, let's begin!
Warning: Yandere and dubious elements.
Yandere with a S/O who can't feel fear
ft. Malleus, Floyd & Kalim
Malleus Draconia
• When you two first met, he was surprised that you smiled at him instead of being shocked or scared of him.
• However, because of such a reaction, he grows an interest in you for being so 'brave'.
• Everything would go well with his talks with you, getting to know you better and all, and slowly he started developing feelings for you.
• He'd always known you for being fearless about everything, even in the dangerous situations that you sometimes put yourself through from what he has heard from your stories.
• However, he started to feel curious about what your fearful face might look like and decided to play a small trick on you. Would maybe a giant dragon suffice in scaring you?
• When he saw your first reaction was lacking in fear, he'd try again with bigger and bigger moves. Malleus could feel his tiny smirk slowly distorting into a frown filled with worry and pain. It only became full-fledged anger at the point where it seems as if you didn't even care when the dragon was about to kill you [ of course, with you trapped with no room for escape ]. You didn't even seem remotely afraid as you tried to think of a way to combat this. However, when the situation is so bleak, you used your rational mind to think of the most painless way to go, and that is to tank the hardest hit in hopes of a one-shot KO.
• When you were about to be hit, Malleus immediately stopped the illusion and merely hugged you tightly. He had just wanted to see another side of you but ended up making himself feel like a disaster for putting you through that. He even had some thoughts if you would just give up your life so easily, why didn't you call him to help you?
• You felt pleasantly surprised that he was suddenly in front of you. Happy to see him, you gave him a smile, but also a knowing look when you realised what was going on just from his expression. It's about time you tell him about it.
• When he hears about your condition, his heart sunk.
• From then on, he has you kept by him the entire time. He had a mindset that if you can't feel fear, you won't know your dangers. It only made him more fearful for you.
• He becomes a lot more possessive over you and warier of the people around you, going so far as to cast spells on you without your knowledge.
• He becomes way more protective each time you get injured, on the basis that you cant feel fear even if you explained to him multiple times that you do know your dangers.
• He would do anything to keep you protected at all costs.
Floyd Leech
• Shrimpy! Aren't you scared of me?
• You just witness him punching a bloody student in a secluded area in school. Of course, you did stare for a while and wanted to leave as you presumed this to be troublesome and dangerous for you if you remained.
• However, this tall eel immediately noticed you and dropped the student he was holding. His eyes glinted as if he saw a brand-new toy being served up to him.
• He peered down at you threateningly after cornering you at a wall. However, even as he did that, you didn't show as big of a reaction as he wanted to see. Weren't you supposed to be squirming under him like a worm? Hey, why are you looking away when he's glaring at you!
• At first he thought it was very boring that you gave him such a lukewarm reaction, but when he figured that you were trying to find a way to escape calmly, his curiosity peaked again. He understood that normal people would be in a state of panic and give him their fullest attention in case he would hit them, however, he didn't feel any sense of fear from you but rather, a very cold way of ignoring him.
• With his interests piqued, he decided to let you go after attempting to scare you with his threats. He found it amazing that you showed no signs of fear in such a situation and decided to make his next days fun in school by harassing you.
• He continuously placed you in dangerous situations, even to the point of near-death situations, to simply observe and find entertainment. Well, that is until you actually got a near-death experience which scared the fuck outta him.
• Looking at your pale and weak figure lying in the infirmary, he thought about how much danger he had put you through. Regrets came washing over him. Initially, he thought it was fun and entertaining to watch your fearless gait. But now, he could hear alarms ringing in his head whenever he thinks you are in danger. In some magical and mysterious manner, somehow, he became smitten for you.
• Ever since then after you recovered, Floyd seemed to have a flipped his treatment of you. He would protect you fiercely from even the smallest threats, growling and even resorting to violence even at small teasings people do to you.
• He finally felt as if he had something he needed to do, something motivating him. He had to protect you even if he had to resort to violence and intimidation. He finally got a spark in his heart and he would do his all to protect this spark. Finally, something he could not get bored of. If you aren't scared by his actions, that means you allowed him to do so, right?
• Shrimpy ignited something in him, so you better accept it, okay?
Kalim Al Asim
• Hm? He doesn't understand it. What do you mean you can't feel fear?
• Even after explaining it to him, he still does not understand it.
• That is, until you were kidnapped because of him. When he found you all battered up but yet lighting up when you see him. He had questioned you all the essentials. Why didn't you scream? Why didn't you call for help? Why do you still look so... okay about this situation?
• You chuckled as you joke. "At least I wasn't killed or hit so badly."
• Kalim stared at you for awhile before getting reminded of what you had told him before.
• Ever since then, he decided to take your safety into his own hands, having bodyguards around you and even giving you your own aide so that you could be protected. He just wanted to keep you safe, so please allow this of him, alright?
• Privacy? Is that more important than your safety, darling?
582 notes · View notes
cecilxa · 1 year
Text
lasting childhood dream/sweetly shared future
Tumblr media
summary: ever since you were little, alhaitham knew what he wanted.
contents: childhood friends!au, fluff, ambiguous relationship at the end (although implied romantic), gn!reader (they/them pronouns used), soft soft alhaitham
cw: food
wc: 1k
a/n: so so sorry for the slow updates :') things will (hopefully !) be picking up momentum again 🤞
Tumblr media
“Hey, Haitham.”
Your high-pitched voice calls out to him. He chooses to ignore it. 
“Hey! Haitham! Are you purposely ignoring me cause you wanna read? Again?”
A crease forms at his eyebrows–an action that a nine-year-old should never have gotten used to as often as he did–and his hands tighten around the pages of his book. You always did this. Nearly every day, you would choose to sit next to him. He can’t even remember when it started, but soon enough, you had proclaimed him your ‘best friend for life’. 
For a child prodigy like Alhaitham, it’s extraordinary how he has no idea why you’ve chosen him to be your designated play partner. You don’t even play like the other kids. He just sits there, reading his book, and you sit there with him, chatting incessantly about whatever it is you want–not like he cares, anyway. (It was food on Monday, an interesting flower you found on Tuesday, and food again on Wednesday.)
He’s never asked you why, and you’ve stuck with him long enough for him to be satisfied with not knowing. It’s not like he’s not curious; he just finds his books more interesting. 
“Well, since you’re not answering, I guess I’ll just find someone else to play with!” 
You harrumph, turning your head away. However, since you don’t make any move to physically get up, Alhaitham doesn’t look up from the slightly-yellowed pages that he hasn't noticed he's crinkling. 
But then, the unthinkable happens. Legs that were previously lounging beside him begin to unfold and rise, a shadow forming over his head. It takes him the time for you to fully stand up for him to comprehend what was happening. His crease deepens further. 
“Wait.”
On instinct, one of his hands that was holding onto his book clasps onto yours, his head bowed down. His fringe hides his face, which, for once–however annoying it may be–he’s grateful for, as it means you can’t see the blush readily spreading across his cheeks. Pretending to be more interested in dragon fights and swordsmanship, he all but whispers. 
“Stay. I like it better when you’re here.”
Your eyes lighten up, and a large smile breaks out across your face. 
“I like it when you’re with me too! And I wasn’t actually gonna leave you. I just wanted to get us some sweets!” 
“Oh.”
If he wasn’t already thankful for his fringe, he definitely is now, what with the embarrassment he’s being forced to endure. You can still probably see his ears, which he can feel burning up. Not replying, he lets go of your hand–almost abruptly–and lets you skip away to the local sweets vendor that always exudes a sugary smell. 
He watches you all the way. The sun’s shining brightly on your skin, making it glow. Your toothy grin still pervades his mind, and he can feel the blush on his cheeks that never seems to go away whenever you’re around. Or maybe that’s the heat. But then why is his heart doing backflips? And why do those backflips increase in speed when he looks down at the hand that was held in yours? He thinks that they fit perfectly, like two pieces in a jigsaw puzzle, and (as much as he doesn’t want to admit it) that he wants you to be around him. 
“Stupid thoughts. I only tolerate them because they’re my only friend.”
He chooses to ignore the other thought that his heart seems to tell. 
“They’re my only friend. But I don’t mind, because I really only care about them.”
After a few minutes, you come back with that same toothy grin, carrying an assortment of sweet treats for the both of you to devour in only a few seconds. They all blend together into a saccharine scent. 
“Look, try this one, Haitham! The person said it was a new flavour!”
He accepts it immediately, taking it gently from your hand and putting it into his mouth. It explodes with flavour–nutty and aromatic, nothing like the sugary syrup of the others. A small and satisfied smile creeps onto his face, his eyes failing to hide his delight. It does get stuck, however, as he tries to get parts of it dislodged from the gaps in his teeth. A giggle interrupts him.
“Haitham, you look really funny! Y’know, I want to have a sweet shop when we’re grown up so that I can make all the sweets you want! Then we can have fun together even when we have to do grown-up, boring stuff.”
You remember to be considerate, and turn to him.
“What about you, Haitham? What do you wanna be when you’re grown up?”
Alhaitham doesn’t remember exactly what he said after. Probably a scholar. All he can remember is younger him staring blatantly, mouth gaping open at your questioning eyes, and his heart pounding at your mention of ‘we’. The realisation that you felt the same way as him left him astounded. In that moment, he felt something bloom in his chest, something that he’s carried all these years. 
Although he’s not sure whether you ever fully understood how much of a soft spot he had for you. You never even noticed how his headphones were always on the ground, rather than on his head, whenever you were around. 
Now, reading his book peacefully, he looks down at his lap and allows himself to smile. You’re going to wake up with a sore neck if he keeps you in this position for much longer, but just for a moment, he wants to admire you. 
Alhaitham strokes your hair tenderly, moving it out of your face, nimble fingers caressing your jawline. His eyes soften. How much you’ve meant to him. The years that he’s known you for don’t compare to the amount of gazes he’s thrown your way, so full of youthful longing and yearning. Because ever since you said ‘we’, he’s been able to answer your question. Maybe not in the exact same way he did all those years ago, but an answer that’s been stewing for every year after. 
“When I grow up, I want to be by your side.”
Tumblr media
a/n: he’s grown on me i can’t lie 😔 enemies to lovers though 😍😍 likes, reblogs and comments are always appreciated !! 🩷🩷 (pink heart for iOS finally!)
1K notes · View notes
pogueswrld · 9 months
Text
*•.¸♡ make up sex ♡¸.•*
pairing: fred weasley x fem!plus-sized!reader
summary: Freddie talks too much, and his girlfriend is exhausting all the ways she knows to shut him up. Softly, of course.
warnings: smut🦢!1!1!1!1! there's plot and fluff, and everyone's of age ofc, although it is hinted that reader is still in Hogwarts, kinda sub!Fred top!reader, like he's whining and panting and begging and shit (bites lip) ANYWAY, dick riding hehe, no usage of y/n.
note: it is 2:59 pm on a Friday, let's see how fast I write this shit. note 0.2: Okay so it's 5:54 pm on the same day, I think I'm done. This isn't edited, but it took me 3 hours to write 😁
Tumblr media
He was still talking. Why, in the name of Merlin, was he still talking?
Dating Fed Weasley is fun, there's no denying that, but Good Heavens isn't that a boy a handful. Both literary and figurative. He's got a wide imagination, a never-squelching desire for knowledge, and a big heart. That is a dangerous combination for a somewhat intelligent and never-quiet man.
She's a saint, his girlfriend, and Ginny made a point to always express that to her. "How do you put up with that all the time?" Gesturing to Fred, who was using his hands in elaborate motions as he went on his fourth rant of the morning on the same subject to George. She'd only shrug, lips engulfing another spoonful of whatever ice cream the girls were sharing. "In one ear and out the other darling."
Not to say that she hates it, or that it bothers her- quite the opposite actually. Fred's excited and hyper personality is what made him so interesting to her, it was what drew her to him in the first place. She enjoys listening to him rant, even about the most random things -he stopped her the other day and explained in great detail how penguins mate and how once the female accepts the male's proposing gestures, they're together for life- and she adores it.
Yes, it sure can be a bit much at times, but she wouldn't change it for the world. Imagine loving a man who was as boring and dry as his older brother, Percy? She would have to jump out of Ginny's bedroom window!
Today was her first day back in the Burrow from Hogwarts for summer break, and she was exhausted, to say the least. She was up from dawn, finishing up the last bits of her packing before leaving for the train station with Harry, Hermione, and Ron. And because she's a good friend, she made sure each of her friends made it to their transportation safely before she and Ron were picked up by Fred and George.
In the car, Ron opened the untameable can of worms by mentioning Bill who was staying over at the Burrow for the summer as well, taking a couple of months' worth of vacation away from the dragons and such. That was the spark Fred needed to blast off into a hundred rants one after the other.
He spoke about seeing Bill again, which is understandable, he hasn't been home in years. He spoke about the dragons, which led to his excited mention of his favorites and how he's going to ask Bill how it was training them. Then he turned to Quidditch training, and even though both him and George had left Hogwarts a year or so ago, the both of them still found time to play the game as a side hobby. After that was all done, George gave her and Ron and update on the shop, and Fred went on and on about all kinds of new candies and flavors and combinations they were working on to add to the store by the beginning of next year.
She was understandably tired by the time the Burrow came into view. And as much as she adores her boyfriend, she needed him to shut the fuck up for twenty minutes. But he's so sweet, and his eyes light up when talking, and he gets this beautiful energy surrounding him when he does it that she doesn't have the nerve to ask him to be silent for a bit. So she excuses herself and tries to bury her body under the covers of his bed.
But he finds her there, and he reports to her that dinner is ready, and that Bill is here, and that she looks so gorgeous on his bed, and that there's a strange animal in the backyard, and that Ginny tried to curse the bathroom when he went in to use it, and that he doesn't understand why she'd do that, and that George is out in the garage, and that-
She jolts up on his bed, her eyes twitching as she stares at him. He looks so beautiful, but he's talking too damn much. She cups his face, and he goes silent and stares at her with wide eyes.
"Wha'?" He mumbled, his lips squished together as she squeezed his cheeks.
"You talk too much, ya' know that?" She said, her thumb slightly caressing the apples of his cheeks.
He opens and closes his mouth like a fish out of water, and tilts his head ever so slightly. "Do' it bothe' yo'?"
She giggles breathlessly and lets go of his face before pressing her lips tightly against his. "Not all the time, but times like today..." She rests her forehead against his and sighs, "It can be a lot, and I need you to read the room and tone it down a little bit, d'ya think you can do that for me?"
He stares, something in his gaze changes, and he nods. "Of course, baby. Whateva' you want."
Great. Now she feels bad. She sighs and pushes past the blankets swallowing her to sit up on her knees. She wraps her arms around his shoulders and pulls him into a hug. "I love you, truly love you, and I don't mean to be mean to you, and you know I love it when you ramble, but I'm really overwhelmed today, darling. I'm sorry."
Fred wraps his arms around her waist in return, hugging her tightly. It's true that he can't always read the room, and now that he's no longer attending school he's got much more free time on his hands than he knows what to do with. It takes him a couple days to be able to read his girlfriend's body language like he used to once she's home from school, and he feels terrible that he was one of the reasons for making her feel so incredibly overwhelmed. He also feels slightly ashamed of his non-stop rambling all day.
He buried his face in the crook of her neck, mumbling something into her skin that made her shiver and giggle away from him. "Stop," she breathes in a giggle, "It tickles."
He chuckles, his hands squeezing at the skin of her waist as he stares at her dreamily. "I said, I'm sorry I made you feel overwhelmed, I promise to try and do better."
She grins at him, so brilliantly, that he can't help but lean down and capture her lips in a soaring kiss. "I love you." He mumbles against her lips, and she smiles while trying to kiss him back. "C'mon now, love, let's go have dinner."
Her eyes darken; her pupils widen, and she smiles that mischievous grin that he adores so much, and he groans while throwing his head back. He knows exactly what is on her mind.
"I have a better idea." She whispers, giggling as she throws herself into his lap and kisses him with such force that she's pushing him down on his bed. He yelps, his hands traveling to the bed and her waist, holding on to her for stability. Bubbling heat travels across his body through her kiss, and he sighs when her cold fingertips trace down his arms, sending goosebumps across his body.
Her kisses transfer from his lips to the sides of his mouth, his cheeks, down his jawline, until she's pampering open-mouthed kisses across his neck like stardust.
He sighs, his eyes closed and his head thrown back on the pillow. "Please," He breathed, a low whine undertoning his voice. She shivers above him, her teeth grazing his skin in a teasing bite.
She's always hated the effect his voice has on her.
"Please what, darling?"
He whines. It's low, for her ears only, it's a barely-there breath, but his mouth is right next to her ear and she hears him loud and clear. Her panties dampen almost immediately.
"Please touch me," He whispers. His hands gripped tightly to her thighs. He knows better than to roam her body without permission. She pulls back slightly, blinking up at him with a soft smile and long lashes. "But I am touching you, Freddie."
He knows this game. This cruel, cruel game she adores to play. He whines in pretentious of hating his role, but his hips buck, and his cock twitches underneath the fabrics of his boxers and trousers.
He slowly traces one of his hands from her thighs to her palm before letting her fingers rest on his aching cock. He guides her hands to gently rub him through his clothes and he lets out a breath when her fingers squeeze around him. "Touch me there." He gasps.
She entertains him, allowing him to set the pace and buck into her hold. He releases deep breaths and low whines, stuttering moans every time she tightens her grip around him. She can feel herself getting wetter by the second, how his eyes are shut desperately, his teeth bite down on his bottom lip, and her name is gasped out of his throat with every other movement. It makes her feel powerful, it makes her entire being vibrate.
"That's enough." She mumbles, pulling her hand out of his grasp and bathing in his complaining whines as she pulls off her shirt. He blinks up at her, watching her boobs bounce in the push-up bra she's wearing before she unhooks it and slides it off her shoulders. He blinks again and swallows whatever drool and saliva has gathered in his mouth, causing his Adam's apple to pop along with the action. She smiles at the sight and quickly bends down to leave a swift kiss on it.
"Take off your shirt." She commands him, and he does so without hesitation, throwing the garment somewhere on the floor of the room he shares with his twin brother. He watches her hands intensely as she teases him by running her thumb on the inside of her trouser's elastic, before slowly pulling the item down and off. He groans at the sight of his favorite panties on her; a partially lacey red thong that settles up between her butt cheeks. She always told him how uncomfortable it made her, but the look on his face when he saw it on her made every second she spent wearing it worth it.
"You're trying to kill me, love?" He groans, daring himself to take a dangerous leap and push his thumb against the damp cloth, pushing down on where he knows her clit hides. He glances up at her, watching the way her lips part and her mouth hangs open at his action.
"And what am I to tell George when he asks? Death by a red thong?"
He grins up at her, picking up the speed at which he's rubbing on her bud of nerves. "Only if you're the one wearing it."
She shudders, forcefully holding herself back from grinding against his thumb. Instead, she grips his wrist and pushes it away from her. She hooks two fingers on each side of his trousers and boxers before meeting his eyes, watching as he licks his lips and nods before pulling the clothing items down his hips and legs.
His cock bounces out from underneath the fabric happily, it smacks against his lower abdomen and she giggles at the sight of precum beads rolling down his slit. He whines, throwing his arm on his face to cover the embarrassing blush that matched his hair color. "Don't laugh at me, why're you so mean to me today?"
Her giggle grows louder, and she leans down to push his arm off his face. "I never intend on being mean to you, my darling, you just bring it out of me. I'm sorry." She mumbles as she meets his gaze, her hand cupping one side of his face and he leans towards her touch. "Don't hide from me, yeah?"
He nods.
"Good boy."
He whines, his eyes squeeze shut and his jaw drops when her fingers wrap around him again, but her thumb is collecting his precum before spreading it down his length before she works a steady rhythm going up and down. His whines slowly turn into moans. His noises were so heavenly that she could swear her wetness was flowing through the fabric of her thong and onto the skin of her thighs.
She sees his muscles contracting and she stops, removing her hand from him altogether. He opens his eyes, blinking up at her in confusion as a noise of complaint slips out of his throat. But he swallows it back up when he sees her push her thong to the side and spread her folds before sitting on his length, and she grinds back and forth on him without actually allowing him access to her.
He groans, throwing his head back. She's coating him in her juices and there's a delicious squelching noise coming from between them and it's driving him insane. He sucks air into his lungs through clenched teeth and shudders when she allows a single moan to slip through her parted lips.
Suddenly, he's engulfed in her warmth and he hisses. His hands grip tightly to her thighs, hips, and any plump skin he can find. He squeezes her, hissing, and pants until he's sheathed completely inside of her. "Slow down," He gasps, "Slow- slow down, slow down, slow down." His voice turns from low breaths to almost high-pitched whines, and she leans down and captures his lips in a silencing kiss.
"Need you to lay here and keep your pretty mouth shut, darling, can you do that? Can you stay quiet for me so your family doesn't hear us fucking?" He whines, hips bucking into her warm cunt causing his eyes to roll to the back of his head as he nods mindlessly. "Yes, yes, yes. I'll be quiet. Fuck- please, baby, please fuck me."
She giggles at his desperate whines, and slowly rocks her hips back and forth, just enough movement to send pleasure jolts but not enough to get them going. She was testing the waters, trying to see how loud he could get without giving him much of anything.
Fred was losing his mind, he could feel her walls clamp down on him every time she moved back, and he could feel himself nudging against her feel-good spot every time she moved forward. Her wetness made a mess out of both of them, making it easy to slide into her and pick up the pace.
He arched his back slightly, just enough to hint at her to go faster. Because she was starting to feel frustrated, she obliged. She switched from grinding down on him to bouncing, her knees and hips working overtime to not make a noise every time her ass cheeks met his thighs.
She's now moaning, leaning down to muffle her noises by his neck or breathe them directly into his ear. Fred's eyes roll to the back of his head every time, and his hands grab onto the fat of her hips to help her.
"I-" She gasps, pushing herself upwards, clamping down on him tightly before forcing deep thrusts with her movement. "I'm gonna cum." She whimpers, and her legs begin to shake and fail her. Fred let out a loud breath that turned into a whimper before pushing himself up and, with a tight hold of her hips, forced her up and down his cock.
"Wa- wanna feel you. Wanna feel you gush around me. Give it to me, please." He whines, his words muffled into her temple, his eyes closed as her walls flutter around him, her body shivering against him and her lips part in long whines. One of his hands sneaked in between them, and his thumb drew quick circles around her clit, just enough to electrify her over the edge.
She freezes up, squeezes down on him and Fred is gone. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her tightly down on him, the repeated squeeze of her walls stimulated him over the edge and they were shaking through their highs together. Her hands were buried in his hair, his hands holding onto her hips, while their lips interlocked in an overflowing kiss.
A few seconds later, their mouths parted as they gasped for air, holding onto one another as their highs dwindled. He traced random shapes on her bare back while she scratched at his scalp in a way she knew he loved.
He was the first to pull back, looking up at her with nothing but love and adoration. He tilts his head and grins, "Do you still want to go down for dinner?"
She laughs, heartily and loudly out of his arms and back onto the bed. "If you'll be going downstairs for a plate, get me one with you. There's no way I can look your mum in the eye after this."
509 notes · View notes
Text
Familiar Flopsy | Yandere Twisted Wonderland
Asked by @kinleyofnrc: Please do a yandere twisted wonderland with a reader who’s familiar is Flopsy from avatar the last Airbender.
Tumblr media
Similar to the dragon familiar, you’ll call upon your trusted Flopsy whenever you feel in danger. Of course unlike the recognizable dragon crashing into Ramshackle, you’ll have the goat-gorilla hybrid that’s honestly the equivalent of a giant puppy:
Tumblr media
Jamil Viper
“Ahhh (Y/n) come get this thing!”
“Well sorry I tried to tell him you’re a good person now, he just won’t listen to me!”
He gets especially peeved when even after your familiar has stopped chasing 
the creature still glares at him
And he’s just about had it 
He’s already thought about 72 different ways to end it’s life
But he rethinks when he sees you coo and translate what he wants
So he’ll hold off…for now
But he doesn’t expect that Flopsy won’t go down without a fight
Tumblr media
Cater Diamond
“W-wow so this is….him?”
“Yup isn’t he the cutest? He’s got such cute bottom teeth!”
“...Right…”
Doesn’t jump at the chance to share new pictures of your buddy
Especially when he begins eating into your free time 
Free time spent posing for him
While he’s not going to kill your darling familiar
He is willing to direct interested parties in the right direction
Some fanatic scientist at another school desperately wants to sedate and experiment with him
Sure he doesn’t mind being a bit more specific about where you two are hanging out today
He’ll be sure to not giggle when you demand you both pursue Flopsy’s kidnappers
190 notes · View notes
yzzart · 1 year
Note
imagine daemon and rhaenyra’s pretty daughter, who has such a close bond with her brothers, jace and luke (like in your ‘now im here, with you’ fic). never far from them, hugging them, holding their hands. and in return, they’re incredibly overprotective of her.
and then there’s aemond, driven wild with jealously 🤭
— Flavor of a jealous dragon.
© do not repost or translate !
characters: Aemond Targaryen x (F)Targaryen!reader.
summary: witnessing one of your brother's trainings, you can witness the jealousy of a dragon.
warnings: incest, explicit language, explicit words.
word count: 2.978!
english's not my first language, so sorry for any mistakes!
Tumblr media
"It's so strange to see him fighting the wind."
The youngest prince whispered, in a peaceful, mocking way, for you. Your lips couldn't resist trying to prevent a knowing smile, finding your younger brother's speech funny, from appearing quickly.
Really, it was strange to see a person with a sword Indeed, it was strange to see a person with a sword slashing only the wind and pretending that there was a person there, but you wanted to support your little brother.
"He's doing fine." — You uttered the words as you returned to stare at a little Jacerys training session. He was practicing alone, at that time. Some guards suggested training him, but your brother decided for himself that he preferred solo training. — And it was impossible to disagree that he was doing very well.
And Jace, insistently, decided to train in the sacred grove. It didn't matter to him if the place he chose might be a little too small to fight with his sword, he decided and is getting what he wanted. — With each sudden, swift step, the admirable leaves of pure red hue, which lay on the ground, moved in accordance with Prince Velaryon's feet.
You felt pride in being able to witness your brother demonstrate his skills and new ways of fighting. — In fact, it was much more interesting than being locked inside your chambers or going through several meetings about the future of the throne. — And seeing Jace increasingly become a worthy fighter was important to you.
"I think you should train too." — Taking your eyes and attention away from Jacerys, you begin to glare at Lucerys; that when he feels you staring at him, he lowers his head. — "Luke…" — The velaryon mumbled something it wasn't possible to understand.
"I don't think i should and i can't see myself fighting with dignity." — He muttered with his tone of voice of sadness mixed with indifference. That mix had a name and it was insecurity, and you knew what it was about like no one else.
The feeling of insecurity dominated Luke's mind, it was like a plague; words he once said to her. The feeling of insecurity dominated Luke's mind, it was like a plague; words he once said to you. — One thing that sometimes dominated him more than usual and sometimes fear joined in and brought a heavy and confused mix of feelings.
Having the rank of old sister, you know your brothers and sisters like the back of your hand. — Like a dragon with its rider. — And witnessing all the events with all of them, you get a sense of how much and how all the feelings came to them and with Luke it couldn't be the other way around.
And you knew Luke hated picking up a sword, even if it was in self-defense and that had happened once before. — And ended up with a person missing an eye. — And that person was Aemond, your uncle and your lover.
You tasted and found out what the word love meant with Aemond. It wasn't just a common feeling, that he was not worth your time or lost your focus on strengthening your family. It was more than that.
Living between complete love and hate is not an easy thing to live with and witness, it felt like a punishment from the good gods. A punishment that will always haunt you.
Lucerys did not harbor a sense of anger or indignation over your relationship with the man he'd blinded in one eye, on the contrary, he respected you. — He looked up to you, always will, and also always respects your decisions and feelings.
"You deserved to be happy." little Lucerys had spoken those words to you.
However, that did not mean that the relationship between Aemond and Lucerys could improve. — Only the good gods, who all begged for the blessing and good life, knew what would happen between those two worthy princes who shared the same house.
"I think otherwise." — A quick and pure response was directed at the prince. — "Dignity has always been with you and in you, Lucerys." — You directed your hand to the side of the youngest's head, intending to make a small and simple caress. — "Since the day you were born."
The last words almost came out as a whisper. Your voice had shown a certain weakness because of the feeling of emotion that was growing in you. Seeing your little brother like that broke your heart, and it seemed that there was no miracle cure or medicine that could heal that pain.
Your fingers passed through the youngest's brown locks, showing more than simple and meaningful affection. — Lucerys needed this. He needed support, and he didn't want to hoard those fears just for himself.
"My dear little brother." — You plead, beg the youngest Velaryon to look into your eyes. Deep down, you knew Luke was fighting himself not to meet your eyes, afraid of a reprimand or complaint.
In long seconds, Lucerys decides to turn his head in your direction and soon, his blue eyes, with the pigmentation of the ocean, e of the youngest meets your eyes the color of pure purple. — His eyes looked so empty yet searching for a lifeline at the same time.
"You are my point of pride." — You said. — "With sword or not, you are still worthy of everything about you and around you."
A small smile, shy but a little contagious, formed A small smile, shy but a little infectious, formed on Lucerys's short lips. — It was already a good start. — You didn't stop smiling at the boy.
The uncomfortable, sad and tired image of Lucerys from before was gone in a matter of seconds, and you never felt so good about your brother in your entire life. — The good gods were recognizing that.
"Kirimvose, issa mandia" (Thank you, my sister.) — The thick accent during the Valyrian lines was uttered from Lucerys's mouth. The fact that Lucerys was more confident with his High Valyrian than Jacerys was was funny to you. — But, you always kept it to yourself.
Lucerys didn't intervene or stop the small, light movements, the petting you were giving him, in his head. He was enjoying that attention and time with you. — You noticed it, of course, but you didn't think to remove your hand from there.
In a matter of seconds, you started to feel like you were being watched. — Well, you were watched everywhere, by the guards who looked after you and your life, and by the civilians. — But at that moment it was a strange thing. A strange feeling. — Maybe it was in your head, or it must be the stress you've been going through lately, so you decided to ignore it for a while.
"Is spending time with my older sister or does that only go for the younger brother?" — Jacerys's voice exclaimed in your ears, snapping you out of your worried thoughts.
How long had Jace stopped his training?
"Oh, shut up." — Luke grumbled, not caring about his brother's joke. Jacerys just laughed and didn't want to upset his brother any further, and quickly noticed his scowl and put it in his mind that he should ask what was going on with him later. — "Can we go? I feel like i'm going to get dizzy if i see you spinning alone with your sword one more time."
Lucerys couldn't hide the feeling of boredom and weariness that had been building in his body since the minute he arrived. The youngest, at that moment, preferred to spend time locked in his rooms.
"I was so bad..." — The words that were ready to come out of Jacerys' mouth end up being interrupted. It was a somewhat disturbing surprise for you, to the point that it drew your eyes towards the young man.
It looked like he had seen something that bothered him in a bitter way. The expression that fit Jacerys's face was one of disgust, mixed with anger and you were ready to question what had happened or what had passed through his eyes.
"Mandia." (Sister.) — The thick accent with a weak but understandable pronunciation slips, purposefully, from Jacerys's mouth. He didn't change his expression even when calling you and also, he didn't look away to the specific point that angered him. — And your thought, or perhaps a sign from the gods, left a small certainty about who would be there.
Without questioning, or letting a miserable word escape your mouth, you decided to turn around and find out at once who had angered your brother. — And maybe, who was watching you the whole time.
With his costume made of pure leather and severely sewn and well worked, with its pigmentation of pure black; the young man who was feared by all in the region and recognized by the kingdoms, was present there. — Probably, witnessing his nephew's training but that wasn't why he was there.
Aemond watched, from afar, what looked like a small meeting between brothers, even though you were totally different. And he didn't even make a miserable fuss or try to hide the look he held. — It wasn't easy to figure out the kind of look the one-eyed young man was delivering but you can be sure that when his one eye passed by you, he was left with pure admiration and enchantment.
You were staring back at him but fighting, in a strong and resistant way, a smile that even you couldn't explain. — And it would be so embarrassing to make the mistake of being happy with his presence in front of your brothers, you thought.
Aemond's posture was rigid, more serious than usual, it was as if something had bothered him too and it wasn't the nephew's attempt to subpoena with just the look. — That would never happen. — And he didn't want to appreciate what made him that way, and without delay, he decided to walk to leave the place.
And you knew how to recognize the fury of that dragon and you felt that you had to go to him.
"You'd better stay here." — You uttered an order, but not in a stern tone of voice or so strong as to startle them the wrong way. Jacerys wasn't going to question, or even say anything about, your decision and you understood that. — Lucerys was no different from his brother and remained silent, and only a brief sigh escaped his mouth.
Your eyes swept over the Velaryon brothers, a silent farewell to them for that moment. The anger and disgust had drained from Jacerys's face, returning to his neutral expression but with sensitivity because of you. — Moving your lips, you say "Avy jorrāelan." (I love you.) directly to each one.
"We'll be here for anything, remember that." — Jace warned you with determination
Leaving that part of the woods, your steps, with the joint of your long dress, end up taking some red leaves but not preventing or disturbing you to your greatest focus. — But you fear that the end of your dress might be a little filthy and you try not to think about that possibility too much.
In keeping with your quickening steps, the fewer servants and guards you observed and encountered during your little journey to find your lover. An urge to ask one of them where the one-eyed prince could have gone crossed your mind but you decided not to. — And when you least expected it, your vision has the privilege of finding the image of the oldest's back.
According to the wind speed, which was a little strong, Aemond's pure white hair moved.
There were no guards around that part, and you didn't find that strange; Aemond could have asked for time alone and that was understandable. — And it was a good time for the two of you to have some alone time too.
Your steps weren't as precise as before and you weren't as nervous, not in a bad way but completely different. But your heart was pounding and it was amazing how Aemond's presence, and just one look, could move you and your body. — A lump felt like it wanted to form in your throat but you knew you had to fight it.
"Aemond?" — You beat yourself up, mentally, for the small moment where her voice called out to you with a weak edge. A bad time for this to happen; but for your old lover, your voice came out perfectly sweet and woke him up instantly.
Your voice woke Aemond from all bad thoughts or those that led him to a dark feeling, a feeling where he wasn't recognizing himself in some stupid moments. You brought him back to his consciousness with just your voice. — No one from all the kingdoms conquered by your ancestors, not even the one-eyed prince's own family could know that he felt that way in love with you, his niece.
An uncle and niece in love. House Targaryen, the house of dragons, had seen this for so long and you had compassion to see your parents having the same story and look what happened. — Like parents, like daughter.
"I came to think you were going to be with those boys." — Without completely turning his head in your direction, leaving only a part of his face in your field of vision, Aemond utters those long words trying not to show what, in fact, he was feeling. You, in the same miserable second, understood what was corrupting the oldest
Aemond was jealous and under the circumstances, you were surprised and a little disturbed by what was going on around you. You knew that just questioning or pressing what he was feeling would not work and could make the small situation worse for the two of you. — And Aemond needed your attention and care.
"ñuha jorrāelagon." (My dear.) — Going towards him, you place your hands on the side of his face. You felt Aemond's body shudder with your touch and it couldn't be your hand, which was at a slightly warm temperature, but it was the feeling of being touched by you.
The prince's one good eye not only stared at her but admired you. The way an amethyst-colored eye took in every point and line of your face and claimed you were a painting made, delicately, by the good gods. — The Targaryens were closer to gods than men and Aemond was sure in that moment that he was being touched by an angel, that even he considered you a goddess.
"I hate the idea of ​​having you away from me." — Aemond quickly looked away from her but for a short, brief moment. — "And having to watch those damn kids with you is the worst thing i could ever face in my own house."
When he mentioned his nephews, Aemond didn't think twice about venting all his anger and contempt. He had reasons to feel that way, to corrupt himself like that, and you hated to see him that way. — And it hurt just as much to see your brothers like that too.
And it was right there that Aemond gave up hiding the jealousy that was completely dominating his body.
"I'm here with you, aren't i?" — Your hand, which was being held beside Aemond's face, made a lingering caress to get his attention and regain his focus. Immediately, the elder's single eye meets your eyes again. — "I won't hold back your feelings, Aemond, but i hate to see you like this."
The sincerity in your words calmed him down a bit, letting his posture soften for a little while.
"And they're my brothers, and my duty as an older sister is to care for and protect them." — It was necessary to mention this. It was necessary to disassemble Aemond that he didn't need to feel jealous over that circumstance. — "But you're the man i love, and the man i gave myself completely to."
The last words that came out of your mouth, filled the void that was starting in Aemond's head. An emptiness he was beginning to understand there was no need for. — He might not understand or at least care about the mention of his nephews but that statement of you, was all he needed most.
"I love you and i will always love you." — You ended with your sweet statement. The words of pure honesty were carefully directed towards her lover, always being interrupted.
In the blink of an eye, in such a quick moment of time, Aemond wasted no time in bringing your lips to his. The kiss was formed in a surprising way for you, not only by the quick movement he implanted but you felt the mixture of feelings that Aemond was going through during the act. — Passion, admiration, a little anger, were in the middle of that kiss. It was easy to feel.
One of Aemond's hands roamed around your waist and lingered there, only a brief grip was left by him. It was a delicate, honest moment with pure passion, so it wasn't necessary to turn it into something more illicit at that time. — The hand that was left was glued to the side of your face, as you were doing to him.
Aemond didn't want to take his hands off you, he didn't want to lose you between his fingers. The sensation of touching you, your face, or even your waist covered by the long garment, was fascinating for the feared prince. — If you count, the feel of your sweet, so soft lips against his.
Aemond is the man you loved, and no one could tell you otherwise or try to stop your burning passion for him. The man who made you discover what the word "love" meant. — And he was the dragon who would die and kill and face anything and everything for you.
2K notes · View notes
asumofwords · 11 months
Text
Smoke, Fire and Ash
Warnings: This fic includes noncon, dubcon, manipulation, violence, death, forced marriage, and inc3st. Tags will be added as the fic goes on.
This is a dark!fic. 18+ only. Read at your own discretion. Please read the warnings before continuing.
Summary: You are the eldest daughter of Rhaenyra and Daemon Targaryen. You are forced to navigate the difficult surroundings of your upbringing and the eventual disintegration between your family and the Hightower's relationship. What will happen when your older and estranged uncle suddenly takes a more sinister interest in you? (Dark!Aemond x Reader)
Masterlist
Characters: Aemond Targaryen X Reader, HOTD characters.
Note: Hello my sweet angel babies! Thank you all for the love and kind words! Here is another chapter, now there are going to be two perspectives in this, so when you get to the end, you will see what I am talking about hehe. Enjoy ! &lt;3
Tumblr media
Chapter 87: The Other Woman
Days float by as your anger continued to simmer.
Your visits to the Gardens became frequent, irritated energy bouncing through your body, leaving your nights to be restless. And yet to your surprise, Aegon was nowhere to be seen.
You had thought that with his sudden dismissal of his brother to Harrenhal at the news of your pregnancy, that he would make himself present. 
And yet, he hadn't. 
And when Aemond had returned a few short days later to the Red Keep, you had been just as surprised once more. 
Was this a test? 
The two brothers working in tandem to see what you would do?
Or was Aemond's visit truly shortened by his desire to come back to you?
When Aemond arrived back to Kings Landing, his demeanour had shifted once again. He walked around you carefully, chose his words with even more care, and had even refrained from touching you. It was as though he was waiting for you to make the first move. Or maybe he was waiting to you to strike him.
Or perhaps the Prince was waiting for you to respond to the letter you had not read.
When the Prince had returned, you had been seated at the Gardens, nibbling upon a honey drizzled slice of pear, the sweet nectar coating your mouth thickly as you gazed out at the water, concentrating hard to see if you could see any speck of Dragonstone or Driftmark. 
A large shadow moved across the water, and you had craned your head to look up, spotting your husbands large, green, war dragon flying atop the Keep. Her mossy wings, torn in some places, and a deep scar along her side shining in the sun, curtesy of Syndor.
Your resentment bubbled at the sight of his return, and you suddenly felt no desire to continue munching upon the many sweets and treats that your maids had insisted upon giving you. You stood, dusting the crumbs that had settled into your lap onto the stone floor and moved with little haste, knowing that Aemond would most likely seek you out as soon as he landed.
You let yourself begin to walk down towards the beach of Kings Landing, brushing your fingertips atop the many different flowers that you passed. It was not until you came across the fragrant rose bushes that you paused in thought. 
Reaching forward, you grasped a large, blooming, blood-red rose, and snapped it from the bush, bringing it up to your nose to inhale deeply. It was a beautiful colour, and from the exact same bush that Aegon had plucked one for you from. 
You smirked.
You continued on your walk, winding down the path until you reached the stone jetty, finding yourself standing deathly still, rose in hand, as you looked out at the water.
You were waiting for the inevitable.
Waiting for him.
For your shadow.
To come seek you out. To speak to you. To see you.
To beg. To plead. To apologise.
Or perhaps, punish you for your temper.
It was not until you heard soft, steady steps behind you, that you knew he had come, just as you had anticipated. 
Aemond had come to straight to you. 
Not to his King. Not the the Lords. Nor the Small Council. Not even to your shared chambers to disrobe. 
The One-Eyed Prince came straight to you from the back of his dragon.
Bringing the rose to your nose, you inhaled again deeply, and hummed. With a cool breath, your voice flitted towards him, not bothering to turn around.
“Didn’t expect to have you back so soon, Aegon. What did Otto want with you?” And with your last word, you spun, rose still raised up to your face to look at your husband that you knew was behind you.
At the sight of him, you dropped the rose limply to your side, “Oh. Aemond.” You sniffed, “You’re back.” 
His brows were already furrowed, “What did Aegon want with you?”
Those were the first words from his lips.
His first words after coming back from his whore.
You saw red. 
Gritting your teeth you spun away, moving to walk back up the path to the Keep and away from the steady rolling waves of the beach. 
“How was the Whore of Harrenhal?” You snipped, taking the steps in lazy strides, unhurried to get away from him as you twirled the rose in view as you passed.
Aemond’s eye flicked to the flower, then back at your face, his jaw tensed.
You continued up on your path, letting your uncle stew in the possibility of you and his brother having spent time together in his absence. The possibility of Aegon courting you with another rose.
And whilst you had expected it, the Prince did not follow you.
Instead, he stayed rooted in his spot at the bottom of the stairs, watching as you slowly walked up them, singular red rose in hand that you brought intermittently up to your nose to smell.
Aemond found you a while later in the Library, clearly desperate to speak to you, his own insecurities about his brother racing in his mind.
He found you seated on one of the armchairs before the fire, tome in lap with the rose tucked behind your ear. The red atop your hair stood out starkly, and brought out the subtle blush of your lips that you nibbled on gently. 
To Aemond, you looked as though you were engrossed in the story, or perhaps your mind was wondering to a certain older uncle as your fingers danced over the long, thorned stem. His approach did not rouse your gaze, for you knew it was him, choosing to ignore his presence all together.
The One-Eyed Prince stood in front of you, his height doubled yours, as you sat primly in the chair. The air in the Library was tense, and you played upon it, a finger tracing the petals of the flower absentmindedly as you continued to ignore him. 
“Y/n.” Aemond spoke lowly, trying to gage your attention, “I didn’t see her. I attended to my duties, and that was all.”
You hummed boredly, before lifting your gaze to him, the Prince’s jaw locked, hand on the pummel of his sword as he looked at you. You let your gaze drop pointedly at the hand, and to your surprise, he released it, dropping his arm down by his side.
“Aemond.” You sighed, standing, shutting the book in your hands as you stepped forward towards him. You thrust the book against his chest, “I don’t believe you.” 
His hand came to grasp the book, ‘The Loves of Queen Nymeria’, as you brushed past him, making your exit from the library as swiftly as possible. Not hearing his footsteps behind you. 
You found your way to the Godswood, where you always found yourself in troubling times, still holding the rose in your hand as you looked up through its branches. 
You hoped that your parents received the raven.
And even prayed to the Gods that they did. 
What would happened?
Would it be done?
Would she be killed?
How would you know if it had happened?
What if they didn’t get your raven?
You swallowed and sat amongst the roots as you always did, needing to clear your mind, your back against the trunk of the tree as you looked up at the light that shone through the leaves. The tree vibrated with the wind, and in that moment, and as through the wind swept away your doubts, you knew they had gotten your raven.
When the sun had begun to lower in the sky, you took yourself back to your chambers, knowing that your husband would be there waiting, and you would have little place to run.
He would talk to you, and you would listen. 
For a time. 
Aemond was just as you had expected him to be, a creature of habit, sitting in his armchair before the fire, goblet of wine in hand. When you entered the chambers, his head had lazily turned to look at you, eye grazing up and down your body before pausing on the rose you held in your hands. You moved across the chambers and placed it on the small table beside your bed, sighing. 
With contagious irritation, you moved to the side of the room and poured yourself a goblet of wine, sitting opposite Aemond on the chaise as you rose the cup to your lips, sipping the strong spiced red, anger simmering beneath your skin. 
Though, it seemed as though Aemond had bitten off his tongue, and the two of you sat in silence before the warmth of the fire, words unspoken, until the maids entered to light the candles of the chambers, and shortly after, bring your dinner.
You both moved to eat together, a tension filled silence engulfing the room. The quiet chewing and sipping was drowned out by the ever rising beat of your heart in your ears as you looked at him.
You were furious, and angry at the little part of yourself that was relieved to have him back.
Aemond placed his cutlery down onto his plate politely, sensing your heated gaze upon his face. How you wished you punch him in the side of his mouth. To dig your fingers into the cavity where his eye once sat. If only you ha-
“I did not see her.” His voice cut through the tension, and you swallowed thickly, placing your own cutlery atop your plate as you reached forward to grasp your wine. You took a gulping sip as you watched him from over the rim, waiting for him to undoubtedly continue. 
“Kīvin zijo va se Jaes Uēpys se se Sīkuda.” I swear it on the Old Gods and the Seven.
You huffed, taking the goblet from your lips, "Nyke jorepagon pōnta pryjagon ao ilagon syt aōha pirtra.” I pray they strike you down for your lies.
Aemond sneered, "Gaoman daor pirtir. Daor naejot ao. Dōrī naejot ao.” I do not lie. Not to you. Never to you.
You hummed, sipping again, “Pār īlon kessa ūndegon lo iksā pryjatan ilagon iā daor.” Then we shall see if you are struck down or not.
Aemond’s hand on the table twitched, “Kesan daor ūndegon zirȳla arlī, nyke teptan ao ñuha udir.” I will not see her again, I gave you my word.
You pressed the smile away from your lips with a frown. You nodded in agreement, picking up your cutlery again and moved to cut through a steaming piece of meat, dark gravy poured over the top, “Se kostan kivio ao, bona kesā daor.” And I can promise you, you won’t.
You will never see that whore or your bastard child again. 
And it will be because of me.
Aemond nodded, but not because he knew, which made you all the more smug, “Iksā ñuha ābrazȳrys, iksā emare ñuha riña. Ñuha jorrāelagon iksis syt ao, se ao mērī.” You are my wife, you are having my child. My love is for you, and you only.
You let out a bitter laugh, “Should have thought about that before you fucked a child into her, shouldn’t you?”
The Prince stayed silent and went back to his eating, cheek twitching with words to say, but none passed his lips.
"Has the bastard been born yet?" You hummed, stabbing another piece of meat and bringing it to your lips as you chewed, Aemond's gaze darkening.
"No."
"Then how would you know that if you had not seen her?" You blinked at the Prince, biting the inside of your cheeks.
"It would be hard to not notice a chil-"
"A bastard of silver hair in a place where Strong blood once resided. I often think on it," You cut another piece of meat with your knife and fork as you felt Aemond's eye burning a hole in your face, "Would the child look like you, or would it come out resembling a Strong boy."
Aemond did not speak, and so you continued, "For years, my brothers and I, despite my obvious parentage, faced the sharp whispers and gossip fuelled by your mother. Exacerbated by you. And now, you are to have another bastard of your own. And not one that you can easily pass off as Aegon's, if she is truly a Strong."
Resting your chin on your palm, you tilted your head looking at him, "Do you even know if Helaena's children are yours? Or at least one of them? I suspected the twins, but Maelor has Aegon's soft face." You paused, watching anger fall over his face, "I wonder if mine will have it."
Aemond's hands slammed on the table as he looked down at his plate, anger radiating off of him.
"Would it not be a cruel joke from the Gods for you to have sired the King's heirs, and he to have sired yours?"
"That child is mine." He growled.
"I suppose time will tell. The bastard certainly is."
"You mean to provoke me. I have performed my duty as well as I can."
"And yet, your whore is pregnant. Who's duty was that? Certainly not that of a Prince."
Silence moved across the table as he stared at you down his nose.
In disgust.
In anger.
In rage.
"I left you a letter." His voice was impatient, as though the piece of parchment would have explained all.
"What letter?" You cocked your head, feigning ignorance.
His brow was drawn, "I left it on the table."
You raised your eyebrows in mock remembrance, opening your mouth, "Oh." Aemond's face seemed, as though the letter would soothe your only rising resentment.
"I burnt it." You smiled at him widely, and resumed your eating.
Aemond's lips twitched as he looked at you, tongue pressing on the bottom of his lip in agitation.
"Sorry, was it something important?"
Aemond did not respond, hands tightening around his knife and fork, his eye narrowed.
You hummed, chewing a piece of potato slowly before you swallowed, "Anything of importance can surely be spoken to me, and not written down on some parchment like a child writes an apology to his mother."
Aemond tossed his knife and fork onto the table angrily, standing from his chair, hands in fists as he looked at you. You looked up at your uncle, and daintily placed your cutlery atop your plate.
"What are you going to do, Aemond? Hit me? When I am with child?" He blinked down at you, eye flickering to your stomach and back up at your face again, shoulders still tensed.
"I told you when you left, when you broke your word to me. I would never forgive you. You did this. Not me." Your hand pressed to your chest angrily, "I am owed this anger. The Gods will surely forgive me, but will they forgive you?"
Sorrow burrowed its way down your throat as anger crawled up it, you looked at him, and the two met in the middle. A thick and heavy stone that was lodged in your throat that you desperately tried to swallow.
Tears stung your eyes, and you watched as Aemond's anger simmered at the sight of it. Any response that was on the tip of his tongue was lost, and Aemond moved away from you to sit at the fire, singular eye staring into the flames, leaving you to sit at the table alone.
Before long, your meal was over, and your two maids came to clear the table, and ready you for bed, slipping a silk chemise over the top of your head, unbraiding your hair, and letting the thick waves cascade down your back.
Aemond had crawled into bed before you, and you had fluttered about the chambers, delaying the inevitable, and enjoying the way he shifted beneath the sheets watching you as he waited. 
When you went to bed, and settled beneath the sheets, you rolled and turned your back to him, tucking your hands beneath your chin as you fought the urge to not laugh. It was all too much. Too much anger. Too much joy. It got all twisted and mixed together, turning your chest alight. 
You could feel the heat of his gaze from behind you and chose to ignore it, closing your eyes as Aemond blew the remaining candles out beside your bed. The chambers were basked in darkness, and eventually Aemond rolled away from you in a huff. 
A grin peaked through on your lips, hidden in the dark, and soon you fell to sleep.
DRAGONSTONE POV
A few short hours away from the shores of Kings Landing, a raven had finally arrived to Dragonstone. The small, black corvid had made its way across the sea to deliver a message to the Queen.
Queen Rhaenyra had been in her chambers, robe wrapped tightly around her body as Daemon leant his head against the front of her stomach. The once Rogue Prince, seated on an armchair by the fire, his wife standing before him, carding gentle and soft hands through his silver white hair.
"Come to bed, my love." Rhaenyra whispered, hand cupping the older mans cheek.
Daemon lifted his head to look up at the woman he adored, her violet eyes glowing in the light of the fire. She was ethereal. Beautiful. And he loved her more than anything in the world.
His large hands came to grasp at her hips, pulling her forward and into his lap, Rhaenyra straddling her uncle on the large chair. Her hands came to the tops of his shoulders, before skimming up to cradle his face.
"The hour is late." She argued, with no true argument on her lips.
"I did not know there were certain hours in which I could love you." The man smirked, hands rubbing against the flesh of her hips.
As Rhaenyra smiled, she dipped her head to catch Daemon's lips, and a knock came at the door.
Both silver heads turned sharply.
It was late.
And there would be only one reason for such a disturbance.
The pair shared a look before Rhaenyra climbed off the King Consorts lap, moving quickly as she called out to the knight to enter.
Ser Erryk Cargyll pushed through the door, bowing and apologising for the intrusion, his helm off, light brown hair pulled back and away from his face. Daemon came to stand behind his wife, always behind or beside her, to show strength, to show unity.
To be there and support her.
As one.
"There was a raven." The pale hand of the knight moved forward, parchment in his open palm as he gave it to the Queen, who all but snatched it from him.
There was no seal, and the parchment was scrunched and bent. As Rhaenyra opened it, and Daemon moved to stand beside her, they read the short message from their daughter, the Queen's hands tightening on the page.
Rhaenyra stiffened, posture straightening as she looked at the knight before her, "Wake the Maester and the Lords. We have word from the Princess."
The knight bowed, swiftly slipping out of the chambers as Rhaenyra turned to face her husband, who's eyes glinted with a dangerous rage. She could feel the fury that curled around him, and she felt her own burn her just as hotly.
"Go," Came the steady voice of the Queen, her hands dropping to her side, parchment still in one tight fist.
Daemon tilted his head, silver hair shimmering in the chamber light, as though he was unsure of what his wife had said.
Before he could open his mouth to respond, the Queen spoke again, tone final, and anger crackling just beneath.
"Before the Council can talk me out of it."
Tumblr media
Thanks so much for reading along with me, if you wish to be added to the tag list please let me know :) Likes and reblogs are greatly appreciated ! Enjoy <3
Tag List:
@izzicle @ej-shitchats @may-machin @alegria1580 @witchy-jadda @videovampire @inkdelicious @queteimporta39 @virtualsweetsqueen @fo-cus @auratiqs @feyres-fireheart @queenofshinigamis @asoiafwh8re @teasandcrumpets @shesjustanothergeek @grungegrrrl@queenofsarcazm @marihoneywk @curlszx88 @virgogaia @loser-keiji @asoiafwh8re @whore-of-many-hot-men @vipervixxen @theonewiththeimaginaryboyfriends @watercolorskyy @lavendervisions @mazmack666 @chokefrog @orangejump-suit @nik2blog @serrhaewinin @ohemgeewhat @winxschester @cryptidsrcool @drinking-tea-and-be-obsessed @celestedonut @bloodyvelvet777 @iamapersonthatsalive @av-sos @yentroucnagol @sanzu-s @opheliaas-stuff @bellameshipper @maviee @persephonerinyes @neytiri-09 @ensnaredinwonderland @xbluegracex @sotragedynut @nattieot7 @shesawaywiththefairies-blog @coffedraven @prettycutebunny @celestedonut @the-jess-life @ssulfurr @out-of-life @madislayyy @crazylokonugget @cicaspair418 @katwmk @relminnie @milovart @teagrex @visenyaverse @bellameshipper @toodlesxcuddles @tempt-ress @dontmindmereading7 @qyburnsghost @55gyi53vtnquwziq5 @notnormalthings-blog @maidmerrymint @qyburnsghost @madislayyy @chelseaouat
Bold is who I cannot tag!
530 notes · View notes
suzena · 11 months
Text
Complete Dead Apple Explanation
Or: “The Ultimate Guide to Dead Apple”.
Warning: this is a long post! I’m not kidding, I worked on this for three months. There is a TL;DR at the end but it will only briefly cover the most important points.
I see posts about Dead Apple not being understood far too often and so I’m introducing: this explanation! I do want to preface this by saying that I can completely understand that this movie can be confusing. Or, as Fyodor said it:
Tumblr media
But, as someone who has seen it many times, I’m here to shed some light on it! Hopefully after this post it’ll all make a bit more sense, and you’ll at least have different questions.
If you haven’t watched the movie yet and are wondering when to watch it, the story officially takes place between season two and three, though you’ll be able to watch season three with no issues if you haven’t watched the movie. Please do note that this post will contain light spoilers for the plot after season two, so don’t read it if you haven’t at least finished catching up to the anime.
I’ll try not to summarize the movie, but instead explain it. That means that this post does not replace the movie, but instead tries to elaborate upon it and tries to place it in the larger plot. Most of the early movie is therefore ignored, but please do not hesitate to ask if you have extra questions, comments, different interpretations or you want me to go into more detail about something. I may not know everything, but I’m always down to talk about this movie!
Alright, with all of that out of the way…
The Dragon Head Conflict
We’ll start at the beginning, which is to say, we’ll start at the prologue, which can be found as a permanent event in Mayoi (and also as a part of the Dead Apple manga). This is not technically needed to understand most of the movie, but it does give some context that will make it a little easier, since this is where it all starts. 
The Dragon Head Conflict, sometimes also translated as the Ryuuzu Conflict, is (as the movie states) the largest conflict in the history of Yokohama’s underworld. It took place six years ago, and originally was about five hundred billion yen an ability user left behind after they died, which various organizations were very interested in. It lasted for a total of 88 days, and involved conflict between eight different underworld organizations, including among others the Port Mafia, Gelhart Security Service/GSS (from Fifteen) and Takasekai (also from Fifteen).
Now as you can imagine, the government isn’t super stoked that gangs are shooting each other up all night and leaving corpses everywhere, to the point where the sidewalk is torn up from the bullet holes. To try to combat this, they thought that they could best fight fire with fire, and let a strong ability user from outside Yokohama settle this conflict all at once.
This new ability user, known as the “White Qilin”, unfortunately doesn’t really care about ending the conflict and kills other strong ability users left and right just for the fun of it, contrary to what the government had hoped he would do. Whether they are uninvolved parties or Port Mafia executives, it doesn’t matter to this guy. The White Qilin also ends up taking the money the conflict was originally about, but that doesn’t stop his murder spree. In this way, the White Qilin gains control over the entire conflict pretty fast, making him the main target to eliminate in order to put a stop to the killings.
Dazai approaches this problem similarly as to how he did during the conflict of Stormbringer, with a group of ability users to overpower the lone individual, but gets his plan twisted on him and gets kidnapped instead. Naturally, he predicted this outcome, leaving a hint for Chuuya where he left a transmitter for a tracking device so that Chuuya could come rescue him. 
This is then the first scene of the movie, where Dazai and Chuuya confront and defeat the White Qilin using Corruption, and the whole Dragon Head Conflict ends since the White Qilin is finally gone and all the money burned. This battle is so iconic in the underground circles that it gains them the name “Double Black”, or “Soukoku”.
A few small notes on the Dragon Head Conflict before we move on.
As can also be seen in the first scene of the movie, this is where Oda adopts all five of those kids you see during the Dark Age, which was also already stated in the Dark Age itself. 
“I heard all about it, Odasaku. You’re raising five kids, huh? And not only that, they’re orphans from the Dragon’s Head Conflict.” ―Dazai, Dark Age
Also, ever wondered why the Port Mafia is the only major criminal organization in Yokohama? There actually used to be five in total but four of them completely perished during the Dragon Head Conflict. Another reason why Dazai & Chuuya ending the conflict is so impressive, since because of that the Port Mafia is the only one to even survive it at all.
Shibusawho?
As you’ve probably guessed by now, the “White Qilin”, also named “the Collector” in Dead Apple itself, are both different names for our main antagonist: Shibusawa Tatsuhiko. The government had good reason to believe Shibusawa would be able to stand against the entire Yokohama underground and come out on top: his ability.
Shibusawa’s ability, Draconia, creates a fog around him, which separates other ability users from their own ability and makes non-ability users disappear as long as the fog persists. When surrounded by this fog, ability users are confronted with this version of their ability that is split from themselves. If an ability user is to die within this fog, their ability will be added to Draconia’s collection room.
There is decent evidence that it takes a while before the fog activates, so the effect isn’t immediate. This can be seen with Chuuya, who makes very short contact with the fog before he lifts up the building that he shoves in the Dragon’s mouth, but it’s seen even more clearly with Atsushi and Kyouka at the start of the movie. They spend a small while running around Yokohama wondering why everyone is gone before they’re finally confronted with their abilities.
To some extent the separated abilities represent the inner conflict in an ability user. This can of course be clearly found in Atsushi and his shaky connection to the tiger, or in Kyouka who has Demon Snow which is the last remnant of her parents but also murdered them in front of her. But the clearest example of this in the movie is actually Kunikida, since there is a visible change between him and his ability.
Tumblr media
The notebook of Kunikida’s ability does not read its usual “理想” (ideals), but instead now says “妥協” (compromise). For Kunikida, a person so tied to his ideals, this version of his ability is an “abomination” (his words, not mine), and thus a source of inner conflict, since it represents a side of Kunikida that he carries within him.
“A copy of himself that didn’t follow ideals but made compromises was an abomination to Kunikida.”―Dead Apple (light novel)
If ability users manage to defeat their abilities in a physical fight, and then also accept these parts of themselves for what they represent, they will regain their ability. For example, Atsushi does not immediately regain his ability after defeating the tiger because he does not completely accept that the tiger represents that he has killed a person. For Atsushi, a person who connects his entire reason of living to saving other people, this is nearly irreconcilable. The only reason he probably is able to get over it in the end is that the person he killed was actively torturing and trying to kill him, so Atsushi had to kill to survive.
Shibusawa, then, is dead. Chronologically, his murder is the earliest you see of him. Fyodor has told Shibusawa that Atsushi contains something that “guides the envy of all ability users”, so Shibusawa, who feels like he is missing something, seeks to take this by any means. This doesn’t work out too hot for him, and Atsushi kills him.
Now a fun thing happens. Since Shibusawa is the center of the fog at all times, so to speak, and he’s the keeper of the abilities that die in his fog, his ability is separated from himself and lives on, nearly indistinguishable from his original body. Only one downside to this: he completely loses his memories.
I can only assume the government steps in at this point to take this strong ability user in his vulnerable state, and then have him solve the Dragon Head Conflict not long after. He most likely also survived Chuuya’s Corruption by being an ability, and having ability crystals in his collection to fall back on and recover, as he also does in Dead Apple. However, all of that is just pure speculation.
After the Dragon Head Conflict, Shibusawa spends some years abroad, casually killing thousands of ability users for the same reason as during the Dragon Head Conflict: just playing around and trying to fill that hole of something that is missing inside of him. The Japanese government mostly does a spectacular and spectacularly unethical job of cleaning up after him, since they learned nothing from the Dragon Head Conflict and still think that they can control him to protect Japan should it ever be invaded by foreign ability users.
Eventually, when the timing is right, Shibusawa gets invited back to Japan by Dazai. At the same time he is told by Fyodor (can you see the manipulation happening on both sides?) that Dazai’s ability is the ultimate ability that will finally complete him, and so Shibusawa eagerly comes to Yokohama. 
From here on out, as far as Shibusawa is concerned, it’s just a matter of covering the entire city in fog, killing Dazai and then taking his ability. Since Dazai cancels the fog itself with his ability, Shibusawa does need to kill him first, since the fog will work just fine on a corpse. Unfortunately, Shibusawa, however smart he is, is not in control of the plot in this movie. That control is left entirely to the combination of Dazai and Fyodor.
Intermezzo: Singularity Crash Course
Let’s do a lightning quick crash course on singularities before continuing, because you’re going to need that to understand what is happening in the next part. While Stormbringer was released after Dead Apple, I’m still going to be leaning heavily on and paraphrasing the information provided in that novel since it gives a really nice overview.
Abilities are bound to rules, just like everything else. No organisms other than humans, such as plants or monkeys, can possess an ability. Each human can only have a single ability, and when they die the ability disappears with them. Finally, there is a limit to the strength of any such ability.
But what if you wanted to go beyond that limit? What if you wanted to play with the natural laws of this world? What if you wanted to get really silly with it? Well, in that case, you can try your best at creating a singularity.
Singularities are defined as “the interaction of multiple abilities that develops into a higher-level phenomenon different from the original abilities”. This mostly exhibits itself in a massive release of energy, but rarely there are semi-stable versions of them. Singularities aren’t bound to conventional rules, and can be much more powerful for that exact reason.
As for creating singularities, there are two defined ways. The most reliable method is to have two contradicting abilities clash with each other. This leads to fun mental exercises, think “unstoppable force meets immovable object”, or, two ability users who can both see a few seconds into the future fighting to the death (sound familiar?). As a second method, an ability can also contradict itself, essentially causing the same result, but it’s a lot more finicky.
“Dead Apple”
The latter part of the movie revolves around exactly the creation of such a singularity, as all planned out by Fyodor, and accurately anticipated by Dazai. Let’s lay out all the layers of this.
Shibusawa is after Dazai’s ability. Meanwhile, Dazai is trying to stop the fog to save Yokohama. As for Fyodor, we’ll get to him in a second.
Dazai “teams up” with Fyodor and betrays Shibusawa to put a stop to the fog. The idea of this is that Fyodor combines two abilities from Shibusawa’s collection, which Dazai can’t do himself without canceling them: the ability to pull abilities in a surrounding area close, and the ability to merge abilities together. When these two are merged, together they create an ability that will absorb Shibusawa’s entire collection, and then Dazai only has to touch this ability to effectively get rid of Shibusawa’s power source.
Tumblr media
There is a specific reason why it has to happen like this, and Dazai just touching Shibusawa isn’t quite enough. Let’s mentally walk through the process if Dazai were to touch Shibusawa. The fog disappears for a bit (and Shibusawa with it, most likely), but Shibusawa now knows Dazai’s intentions. Fyodor will take Shibusawa’s side and now Dazai is at a large disadvantage. Ultimately, it doesn’t even solve the problem. We know from the Dragon Head Conflict that just destroying Shibusawa’s body is most likely not enough, and he will be able to resummon the fog (and his body) with time and energy. The problem needs to be cut off at the root, the ability crystals.
Unfortunately, Fyodor didn’t really team up with Dazai, instead choosing to team up with Shibusawa in order to get rid of Dazai. This is then where Shibusawa gets to kill Dazai, and discovers that wait, Dazai’s ability may not be what he’s seeking after all. However, the abilities are already merged, and Dazai’s ability joins them. This combines “the ability to merge” with “the ability to nullify”, which don’t exactly mix well. Does Dazai’s ability become part of the other ability? Does his ability nullify the merging ability before that can happen? It’s already part of it, but at the same time the merging can never happen. It’s contradictory, and thus a singularity is born.
Fyodor, meanwhile, hasn’t quite had his fill of betrayal yet, and decides to remind Shibusawa of what he is by killing him, reminding Shibusawa of his earlier death by Atsushi’s paw. All of this, killing Dazai and using his ability to create a singularity, having that power from the singularity then go into Shibusawa to create the Dragon, all of that was part of Fyodor’s plan. Shibusawa is only able to cover an entire city with fog because of the large amount of ability crystals he has collected, and so with enough power (like from a singularity) he can cover the entire world in this fog. Up until this point, neither Fyodor nor Shibusawa have seen a single ability user survive the fog, and thus it is the perfect method for getting rid of all ability users in the world, which does seem to be Fyodor’s end goal.
However, Chuuya swoops in and defeats the Dragon. Dazai was well prepared and had the antidote to the poison he was killed with hidden in his mouth, so he is alive and well again. That means that Dazai has his ability back and it cancels out the singularity space they both are in. It doesn’t completely get rid of the Dragon however, as some energy still lingers around the tower. 
Fyodor is still on the scene, and uses a part of the merging crystal that he saved which was used earlier to create the singularity to merge Shibusawa with the singularity, giving Shibusawa a very anime transformation into his final form.
Tumblr media
At this point, as a result of Shibusawa’s transformation, the fog turns red. If this red fog then covers the entire planet as Fyodor is hoping, and you were to watch it from space, it would look just like a poisonous red apple. The name of the movie therefore refers to this plan of using Shibusawa to rid the world of ability users.
This idea of poisonous apples in this movie comes from two different sources. From Fyodor’s side, it is referring to the apple Eve ate in the Bible, the original sin. For Fyodor, there is poetic irony in this: the world will end with the same sin as it began with. The crime is the punishment. On Dazai’s side, it refers to Snow White, who bit the poison apple and died (temporarily). He already talks about this to Oda when he is sixteen, vaguely implying he knew all of this was coming as soon as he met Shibusawa during the Dragon Head Conflict. Since Fyodor was already around at that time and also had a hand in enabling Shibusawa originally, this may indeed be planned out this far in advance, but it’s always hard to tell with these guys.
Then the kids take over the fight for the rest of the movie, and Atsushi, Akutagawa and Kyouka work together to defeat Shibusawa’s final form in the form of a long, epic final fight. Shibusawa is finally defeated and it all ends happily ever after. 
The End.
Byakko VS The Dragon
…Or is it? You thought we covered the entire basic layer of the movie, so we’re done now, right? Think again! This is only where things start to become really interesting. Please note that this section will take some ideas that were already pointed out by other people, and build on those.
When looking at lore relevance of characters, Atsushi may not immediately spring to mind as one of the most important ones. Sure, he’s the protagonist of the main manga, but in comparison to the mystery surrounding Dazai or Fyodor he fades a little into the background.
Even in this post, an explanation about a movie that’s basically about Atsushi, I’m able to explain the basics of the movie without mentioning him much at all. And yet, the movie’s core conflict is not between Shibusawa, Dazai and Fyodor, but between Shibusawa and Atsushi.
While there isn’t a lot of information given about Shibusawa’s and Atsushi’s connection, what we do get is very interesting. Shibusawa is consistently referred to as a Dragon during Dead Apple, and while subtitles usually translate everything as “tiger”, Atsushi’s tiger is actually referred to as “Byakko” half of the time. 
Now what is the difference between any good ol’ normal tiger and the Byakko, I hear you ask. The Byakko is much more than an ordinary tiger, since it is part of the 四神 (shijin/ shishin), the Four Guardians of the Four Compass Directions, which the Dragon is also a part of. What you essentially need to know from this is that the Byakko belongs to the same group of creatures as the Dragon, and that this solidifies Shibusawa’s status as Atsushi’s foil in this movie.
It also allows us to make a direct comparison between Shibusawa and Atsushi. The thing is, I have been lying to you a little bit. So far, I’ve been calling the Dragon a singularity. The truth is, it may not be. I know, I know, if it’s not a singularity, then what was that whole Dragon thing about?
Tumblr media
Fyodor actually specifically tells us that the Dragon isn’t a singularity, but instead it’s “the true form of the chaos born from abilities”. (Note here that the Dead Apple light novel talks about Fyodor as if he is “reciting some Oracle”. Did Fyodor get this information from someone else?) Is this related to why Fyodor wants abilities gone from this world? Is there another layer to abilities and other creatures that BSD hasn’t even touched upon (think Lovecraft)? It’s hard to say at this point. All we can say is that the Dragon gets referred to as something else, and… that the Dragon is similar to the Byakko.
The tiger ability we see that got separated from Atsushi in the movie actually doesn’t follow the rules the other abilities do. It has a clearly defined face, and the red gem is not on its forehead. The gem found on the ability tiger is also red, which is in line with the other extracted abilities we see, but what gets extracted from Atsushi by Shibusawa is this blue cube. The weirdness continues in the flashback we see of Atsushi being tortured by Shibusawa. 
Tumblr media
We see Atsushi’s ability leave him, but then in a flash of self protection instinct, he partially transforms into the tiger, claws and all, while the blue gem is outside of his body. Earlier in the movie it is shown that if an ability is extracted from an ability user, they no longer have access to the powers of that ability. Then how is Atsushi able to use his tiger abilities here? 
Granted, there is a bit of conflicting information within the movie about this, since during the final fight with Shibusawa this blue cube is once again extracted from Atsushi, but now he does lose his tiger powers. Could he resummon the tiger while not in possession of the cube if the situation is dire enough? Is this just a psychological thing because Atsushi is aware of it this time? Who can say. At any rate, this blue cube is connected deeply with Atsushi, but the clues given imply that it may not be the Byakko itself.
“That’s not an ability! That is me!”―Atsushi, reaching out to the blue cube in Dead Apple
To be honest, the movie does very little in explaining anything around Atsushi, instead raising more questions than answers. For that exact reason, the rest of this section will mostly be speculation about one possible angle on Atsushi’s ability that personally makes sense to me, but of course this is only one potential theory.
I do also want to add here that Atsushi personally goes through an arc in this movie from seeing the tiger as something separate to something that is intrinsically part of him. This can also be a reason for this final exclamation of “that’s me!” when he reaches out to the blue cube, but it doesn’t explain everything, which is why we explore an alternate possibility here.
My take on it is that the Byakko and this blue gem that get extracted from Atsushi are not the same thing. With the side note here being that they are probably deeply connected, but not the same regardless. 
My reasoning for this is that everything Atsushi-related you see in Dead Apple makes a little more sense when you consider the Byakko and the blue cube as two separate entities. The Byakko’s gem is red, the cube is blue. The Byakko is framed as something separate from Atsushi, while he claims the cube is not an ability but he himself. Atsushi had access to the Byakko while the blue cube was outside of him. Shibusawa even makes a point of mentioning that the orphanage director, who correctly thought Atsushi was the tiger, had the wrong idea about Atsushi’s ability. The Byakko is definitely Atsushi’s ability, but this blue cube is… something else. 
And yet, the tiger is also deeply connected to whatever this blue gem is. Currently, one theory that makes sense to me is that the tiger is an ability that can be passed on, just like Demon Snow, that has the specific task of protecting the power of this blue gem. So, a two in one deal. Atsushi also gets referred to as “the one holding the Byakko ability” by Ivan, which would be in line with the Byakko being an ability that can be passed on as needed. Shibusawa makes a similar statement, calling Atsushi “the one clad in the Byakko”. Atsushi also has issues controlling his ability before joining the ADA, just like Kyouka and Tsujimura, who both also inherited their abilities. I would love to further speculate on this, but there is so little information on anything relating to this, so anything further would be completely baseless.
However, there is one more different clue given to us by the movie. Namely, what this comparison to the Dragon means for Atsushi as the one holding the Byakko.
Almost in the same breath as Shibusawa is recounting Fyodor’s words about the Dragon being the chaos of all abilities, the holder of the Byakko also gets its own description about its true form: the one opposing all abilities.
Tumblr media
This relates to what the blue cube may really be. What Atsushi does to Shibusawa in his final moments is what I essentially believe to be this blue cube’s true power: it completely unravels an ability. The blue power eats up everything supernatural about Shibusawa until only his natural skull is left.
If you think this sounds familiar, it kind of does! I cannot ignore the similarity to Dazai here, though I do have to point out that Dazai can only cancel out an ability, and this blue cube power seems to… completely erase the ability itself, leaving no trace of it. The similarity to Dazai is further found the moment Dazai dies and his ability leaves his body. At first, his ability is white and vaguely similar to the blue cube before deciding that nope, this is just barely not it.
I have a hard time connecting this to anything larger simply because the series does not give a lot of clues on this subject. How did abilities come to be? How is the Book related to that, since it is not an ability or borne from an ability? And how does Atsushi factor into this? 
Shibusawa has been led to Atsushi since he believed Atsushi would grant him something special, something he had been looking for all this time. “That which every ability user desires.” 
Tumblr media
This is actually a familiar story! This is not the first time Fyodor has led someone to Atsushi with the premise that he would be able to lead them to what they were seeking. The first two seasons of the anime follow that specific idea, of Fitzgerald wanting Atsushi so he can lead him to the Book.
Tumblr media
The tiger as the guide to the Book is something emphasized again and again. While in English it gets translated as “guide”, the original manga panel said “道標(タイガービートル)”, or, “guidepost (pronounced: tiger beetle, in English)”. While this is partially just a funny pun, it also once again points to the tiger specifically as a guide.
It did leave me to wonder about the absence of a certain scene in the series. Fyodor has been sending other people to Atsushi for the entire length of the series, but has never interacted with Atsushi himself. For someone who claims to be looking for the Book, and knows that Atsushi is somehow the guide to the Book, isn’t that a bit weird? Is there a reason Fyodor won’t interact with Atsushi himself? Fyodor knew about Atsushi way before he joined the ADA, so it’s not like Dazai is particularly standing in the way here.
Regardless, this factor that makes Atsushi so special may very well be this blue cube. How does the power to completely undo abilities lead to the Book? Who knows. We simply do not know enough about the Book or the origin of abilities to say more about this. Maybe the true power of the blue cube is something else entirely.
What does all of this mean? Where will it all lead? Only the future (Asagiri) can tell.
The Unexplained and Weird
Welcome to the section I’d fondly refer to as “a collection of things I have no explanation for”. There is plenty of that in this movie, but I do want to touch upon them since not being explainable as of currently does not necessarily mean that they aren’t important in the future. Also, not having an explanation for these things is driving me insane and I need to share in my suffering. Let’s go! :)
Let’s get the big thing out of the way first.
Mukurotoride, my friend, my enemy. For those unaware, Mukurotoride is the name of the large black tower that Shibusawa, Dazai and Fyodor were chilling in for most of the movie. The name gets translated as “Skull Fortress”, but the kanji used gives the name more of a “Dead Man’s Castle” feeling, since it refers to a person long since dead more than a skull. My problem with this tower is as follows: it doesn’t make any sense. Whatsoever.
Tumblr media
Why is it there? Fifteen establishes it’s there seven years before the current timeline, so a year before Shibusawa dies. I would’ve accepted it if the tower was a weird side effect of Shibusawa dying or something, but the current facts point towards this tower not having anything to do with Shibusawa at all. It’s also very decayed. How long has it been there? Who put it there? Is it relevant that it’s right next to Suribachi? Or in the Yokohama foreign settlement? (Side note: foreign settlements have not been a thing since 1899. What’s up with Yokohama having a foreign settlement?) No one seems to know anything about this tower, not even in the Japanese community. And then in-universe, everyone also seems okay with this wildly out-of-place tower that looks like it’s made out of human bones being there in the middle of the city? It’s giving me Sky Casino vibes.
Okay, now that I’ve gotten that out of my system, we can talk about Fyodor’s ability.
I want to start this part by explaining my personal stance on the current Fyodor theories, since it influences how I talk about what is shown of his ability in Dead Apple. There are a bunch of theories about Fyodor having an insta-kill ability that only works on non-ability users. Personally, I don’t subscribe to this theory, and I have multiple reasons for this.
First, I don’t think we’ve ever seen Fyodor’s ability being used. At the end of Cannibalism a cop dies as soon as he touches Fyodor. In the manga abilities don’t have a special shine effect, but in the anime they do. However, in the anime there was no ability-shine here.
A stronger argument, perhaps, is that this happens right in front of Dazai, and Dazai immediately afterwards says he has no clue what Fyodor’s ability could be. He could be lying, of course, but since this is a common enemy he shares with Fitzgerald, who is the one asking him about Fyodor’s ability, I don’t see any reason for him to do so here. The whole murder reads a little bit like Fyodor just putting on a show for Dazai.
Finally, from a narrative viewpoint, killing with a touch is a little… useless? Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure it’s convenient, I guess, when you’re a terrorist who seeks to exterminate part of the global population. But there are many ways to kill a person, and Fyodor has shown time after time that he doesn’t need to rely on an ability to murder people.
The strongest argument for the insta-kill ability in my opinion is Fyodor himself saying “this is my true ability” before killing that kid who was enslaved by Ace. However, this may also be part of something else that is going on with Fyodor, in a way that is perhaps very similar to Atsushi.
Alright. Whether you agree with that or not is up to you. To get back to the movie, there are a few interesting clues provided about Fyodor’s ability.
Tumblr media
The first is of course Fyodor’s iconic line when his ability shows up on screen: “Crime and Punishment are close friends.” Everything he says after that point is already referring to Shibusawa again, so this is the only clue he himself is willing to offer up. If we consider that the abilities that get split from their users represent inner conflict, all he is saying here is that he apparently has no inner conflict. Does he know something else about the world? Does he just know who he is? Honestly, I don’t think we’ll get anywhere talking about Fyodor’s mental state.
Then there is the “I am Crime”, spoken by Fyodor holding the skull, and “I am Punishment”, spoken by his ability holding the apple. This one is slightly more straightforward. The ability user being the crime, and the ability the punishment. I’m not 100% sure if this is actually referring to Fyodor himself, or if it’s just about Shibusawa again. The skull (Shibusawa, an ability user) being the crime, and then the apple (covering the world with fog through Shibusawa’s ability, thus punishing ability users) being the punishment makes sense when viewed like this, but it could be that Fyodor is somehow also referring to himself during these lines.
Okay, if Fyodor is apparently not willing to open up, we can gather some more info just from what we can see instead of what we’re told. Most of what this part covers is taken from these excellent posts, but I’ll summarize it here for the sake of completion. Fyodor’s ability looks different compared to most other abilities. Most of the abilities shown in the movie have a blank face without any features, and have their gem on their forehead. The exception to that first part, interestingly enough, is Elise, Mori’s ability. This is most likely because she has physical form as an ability to begin with. Which then raises the question: does Fyodor’s ability also have a physical form outside of the fog? His ability looks identical, so that would imply some sort of clone ability. Next to this, Fyodor’s epithet is “The Conjurer”, which would be in line with him being able to create another copy of himself. (Though I should add here that the Japanese seems to just refer to him as “魔神”, which can be any type of evil spirit. However, if I’m not mistaken, the “Conjurer” should be from the official translation, but let me know if I’m mistaken on that.)
Finally, there is the position of the gem on Fyodor’s ability. Nearly all other abilities have their gem on their forehead, but for some reason Fyodor’s ability has his on his hand. The only other ability that has its gem not on its forehead is… the Byakko. I don’t have an explanation for this one, but the weirdness should be pointed out, since it’s another way in which Fyodor’s ability deviates from the others.
Next to the above, there are two other weird details I want to quickly touch upon.
First, the knives in the apples in the dish in Mukuroride, as well as the apples with a knife in them in general, as they are the theme of this movie. I believe this to be of a more metaphorical touch, so we won’t read too much into it, but it does have physical consequences that tie back to the title as well.
Tumblr media
This exact shot is used four times throughout the movie, but with a varying amount of knives stuck in the apples. It starts with one, then two, then three. The room starts with just Dazai, then Shibusawa enters, then Fyodor. With each of them showing up, another knife appears in an apple. This is then a metaphor for these three being the instigators behind the Dead Apple incident. These knives in the apples can also be seen as their calling cards, as they were left both at the bar and at the scene of the crime where that agent was killed who was supposed to meet with Kunikida and Tanizaki. 
In a later scene, it cuts again to this frame, but a knife and the skull has disappeared. These both get taken by Fyodor. The knife is used eventually to kill Shibusawa, but Shibusawa also took one of these knives to kill Dazai with. Either way, these knives that have been in these apples are used to murder, once again corroborating the connection between death and apples.
And finally, the relevance of the moon. 
Tumblr media
There are a few impressive shots of the moon in Dead Apple, where the moon is shown to be enormous, to the point where even the light novel points out how extraordinarily large it is. The novel also points out that the blue cube crystal holds a similarity to the moonlight. Just symbolism to show that it’s connected to Atsushi, or something more? The other side of the page in the main series will also only be written on the night… of the next full moon.
The Point of It All
I hear a lot of “Dead Apple doesn’t matter to the plot, just watch it for the Soukoku scenes and move on”. And while I do agree that it’s not mandatory viewing to understand the storyline that corresponds with season three onwards, I do think there is more to Dead Apple than most people give it credit for.
I always like to ask myself after reading a book or watching a movie: “Okay, so what was the point of that? What was I meant to take away from this?”
For example, in essence Stormbringer is a case study on singularities. Likewise, BEAST is a study into the limits of the Book, and all other side stories similarly have a message, however big or small.
So what does Dead Apple establish? Why bother?
I hope by now you agree that Dead Apple seems to be the introduction to explaining more as to what is so special about Atsushi. This seems to go deeper into chapter 28/29 of the manga, or season 2 episode 8 of the anime, where Atsushi also has some weird things going on with the tiger. What this exactly is, or where this seems to be going is unclear for now, but the Dead Apple definitely emphasizes Atsushi’s importance as well as the concept that there can be something more than just abilities.
In-universe, there are also reasons for this conflict to happen.
Most likely both Dazai and Fyodor knew the end result long before the conflict ever started. It’s their reunion in a way, so I suppose they are both seeing how the other’s condition is at the moment. They may even have gathered some intel somehow? It’s almost like collecting metadata, they won’t have a direct conversation about important things, but they try to collect information just by seeing how the other acts, to see if the other lies within prediction.
Aside from that, on Dazai’s side, except for foiling Fyodor’s plan and keeping Yokohama safe, the Shin Soukoku dynamic also gets strengthened, something Dazai is actively working on. On Fyodor’s side, next to giving the whole “eliminating all ability users” a good honest shot, he also gets to collect a lot of intel on the opposing side. For example, Fyodor in Dead Apple gets to see Corruption up close, which may potentially be relevant.
Finally, from a storytelling perspective, it sets up a lot for the third season, especially in character interactions and relationships, e.g. Atsushi & Akutagawa, Dazai & Chuuya, Kyouka, Fukuzawa & Mori. It should be noted that some characters literally have been intentionally regressed to make the ending make more impact. Whether that was a good decision or not is not why I’m here. You should just know that it’s intentional. You could chalk it up to Atsushi losing his ability impacting him and his behavior a lot, if you wanted to justify it somehow. The Order of the Clock Tower also gets its first anime appearance, showing Agatha Christie on screen, who will most likely play a more important role later on. Likewise, Dead Apple is the introduction to Fyodor as a villain, where you get to see him for more than just a few flashes.
Trivia and Fun Details
I suppose this section is skippable. But who doesn’t love trivia? This is by no means an exhaustive list of everything included in this movie, but rather an overview of what I personally caught, understood and thought relevant to include.
The “Dragon Head” in the Dragon Head Conflict refers to a Qilin, which are said to have similar heads to dragons. Since the conflict centered around the White Qilin, this is where that name comes from.
At some point Akutagawa and Kyouka use a mafia code to refer to a passageway. The code “0505” refers back to Atsushi’s birthday.
The symbol ᛟ found on the outfits of the Mukurotoride squad refers to inheritage, since Shibusawa inherited his own ability. More information about that here.
Dazai at some point meows at Fyodor. This is a very sassy way of telling Fyodor that he will personally eradicate all of Fyodor’s rats in Yokohama, including Fyodor himself. (The light novel calls it a “tedious” meow. Lmao.)
The music from Dead Apple seems to be recycled in season three of the anime. I’m guessing to save on budget?
Atsushi’s door that he eventually opens to unlock his hidden memories has its own music motif that shows up every time he thinks about Shibusawa, the fog or his memories associated with killing him. Try to pay attention to this, it’s really cool.
The motif of the door is also a tune that sounds a lot like the track named Dead Apple, further showing Atsushi’s relevance in his movie.
The lyrics of the soundtrack tell their own story. When the Dead Apple plot first takes off and Dazai is at bar Lupin, a song called My Prince plays telling of Snow White who is sleeping and waiting for her prince. However, it seems to be a spin on the classic, where indeed Snow White chose to knowingly bite the apple knowing it was poisoned, in much the same way as Dazai knew he was going to be poisoned in Dead Apple. Le Cheval Noir tells of how bored the singer is, and how nothing is special to them anymore. This plays during the scene where Dazai talks to Shibusawa, showing Shibusawa’s apathy towards everything. Mein Prinz, the song that plays as Dazai gets backstabbed, is nearly exactly the same song as My Prince, but now more dramatic and in German. This is a clue that Dazai saw this coming from before the Dead Apple conflict even started, and it’s now up to Chuuya again to save him. Overall, Dazai is leaning into the Snow White aesthetic hard in Dead Apple.
And finally, a list of everything the light novel insists refers to the theme of poisonous red apples: the red apples with the knives in them, apple suicide, the merged abilities producing a red sphere, the singularity that results from that in all its forms and the planet covered in red fog. If it’s red and spherical, you can just assume it should represent a deathly apple.
TD;DR
Recapped extremely briefly:
The Dragon Head Conflict introduces Shibusawa as a villain who was kept by the government but went off the rails. Shibusawa’s ability is a fog that splits ability users from their abilities. If ability users die, Shibusawa obtains their ability. Shibusawa died and inherited his own ability, also causing him to lose his memory. Therefore he wants to obtain Dazai's ability in order to gain what he feels he lacks. Dazai betrays Shibusawa together with Fyodor by combining abilities. However, Shibusawa kills Dazai first, adding Dazai's ability to the merged abilities creating a singularity. Fyodor kills Shibusawa, causing him to regain his memory of being previously killed by Atsushi. A dragon is created and defeated, and Fyodor's plan is revealed to be the covering of the entire planet in Shibusawa's fog, killing all ability users. This plan is foiled, but Atsushi is shown to have potentially another power next to his ability (the tiger). This power is possibly the ability to completely unravel abilities, and may be what makes Atsushi the guide to the Book. Mukurotoride is completely left unexplained in the movie, but there are clues given about Fyodor's ability that point away from an insta-kill ability, and more towards a clone type ability.
559 notes · View notes